


Daybreak

by aahrtyeah



Series: Daybreak Series [1]
Category: Star Wars (Marvel Comics), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: A New Dawn - John Jackson Miller, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Queer Character, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 39,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28923657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aahrtyeah/pseuds/aahrtyeah
Summary: "He knew the sort, having wooed a university woman or ten on more upscale worlds." Inspired by this single line from Star Wars: A New Dawn, this fic acts as prequel to the book, exploring a time pre-Hera. Kanan tries to ignore his trauma-filled past while figuring out how to handle non-attachment, women, and what he really feels about the Jedi Order.Finding himself on a small rural moon for a summer of farming, Kanan is surrounded by people his own age for the first time in years. Salia catches his eye, but is reluctant to be reeled in easily and Kanan accepts the challenge.As Kanan and Salia open up to each other, Kanan learns, though, that she too has her own history.
Relationships: Depa Billaba & Kanan Jarrus, Kanan Jarrus & Luminara Unduli, Kanan Jarrus & Quinlan Vos, Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla, Kanan Jarrus/Original Character(s), Kanan Jarrus/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Daybreak Series [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2121402
Comments: 55
Kudos: 16





	1. Prologue

“Are you serious? Is this the first time you’ve taken a girl out?” Hera was standing in front of him, arms folded, one eyebrow arched aggressively. Her voice was low, but there was a hint of a chuckle that made him see red.

“No! Of course not!” Kanan protested, raising the volume. He crossed his own arms. Their quips were usually lighthearted, but with two hot tempers in play, banter sometimes got out of hand. It seemed like things were going that way tonight. Kanan glanced down at the food he’d made for the two of them in hopes of a nice night in.

Hera rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips now. “So you mean to tell me that a five credit meal in my own ship is your idea of a date? I got dressed up for this because I thought we were going to go out!” She was wearing a special outfit, not expensive or anything, but special because it wasn’t meant for piloting or espionage, though it would definitely help her blend in in a bar if needed.  _ That’s probably why she still has it.  _ It was more revealing than her normal outfits and, when Kanan had seen it, he’d been pleasantly surprised.

Kanan sighed. “I mean, we  _ are _ a little strapped for cash, but if you want, we could go get a drink or two after this.” He was trying to apologize or somehow fix this evening, but the words were coming out sarcastic or over animated--he couldn’t tell which. Losing control over his feelings and impulses was probably punishment for choosing attachment. Or at least it was not what the Jedi masters had wanted for him. He really could use a drink right now.

“You know you shouldn’t be drinking.” Hera said coolly, shaking her head.  _ Ah great, now I'm a project!  _

“Well, I don’t know! Where else do you want to go to ‘go out’?” 

“I don’t know, maybe a  _ restaurant _ ?” Hera’s voice was smooth, but deadly. 

Kanan groaned and stormed off to his cabin to meditate. Or at least get away from being in trouble for a bit.

  
  


“Kanan?” 

It had been about an hour. Hera had eaten the meager but tasty meal Kanan had prepared. It was better than rations or quick meals and she felt bad for complaining about it now that she’d realized how much work he’d put into it. Work he really hadn’t needed to do. She’d just expected something bigger and couldn’t help her disappointment. He’d said, “I want to do something special tomorrow night.” Hera’s experience was very limited in this field, but from what she’d gathered about courtship, “something special” usually involved getting dressed up and hitting the town. But, that wasn’t important. She was coming to apologize, not linger on feeling let down. 

It hadn’t taken long for Hera to feel bad about what she’d said. Sitting there, eating the food that he had made for her, wondering if she should take his plate to him… They fought often, but it wasn’t often Hera worried like this, that Kanan was going to emerge from his cabin with a bag packed and ready to leave. She hated how her stomach had sunk when Kanan had left. And she hated not knowing what to do about it. What would she do if he tried to go? Would she go get him? Or would she be fine without him, throwing herself back into the fight single-mindedly? 

Chopper rolled by and groaned at the lover’s laments. Hera ignored him and tried again. 

“Kanan?” she pleaded, this time a little louder. 

“Just a minute.” His voice was steady and calm. Seemed like you could make a fortune bottling up whatever they taught at the Jedi Temple.

The door slid open and Hera, whose face had nearly been resting on it looked up in surprise at Kanan. His face was close too. Hera looked down sheepishly.

“I’m sorry,” they both said. 

Their shocked, wide eyes met. “Wait, why are  _ you  _ sorry?” Kanan asked, sounding astounded. 

Hera hung her head again. “My expectations were unreasonable. It wasn’t fair for me to get mad about you not reading my mind.” There was a long pause. Hera wondered what he was thinking, but was too ashamed to look up. 

“Well, I mean, I could try to read your mind a little if you want.” Hera could hear the smile in his voice. She couldn’t help the bubble of sensations that sent through her body. 

“Can you read it now?” she looked up and met his gaze. It was fervent, like hers. 

Kanan smiled the tiniest, crooked smile. “I don’t think I need to.” His voice was warm and low. Hera felt his hand on her back, then on her lek. A little gasp escaped her lips. 

“It seems not,” she finally said, shutting her eyes and leaning into his body.

  
  


Kanan was a little hot, sweaty, and sticky, but that didn’t seem to deter Hera from clinging gently to him. He ran a finger absently along her lek. 

“Don’t get me started again,” she admonished.

Kanan chuckled. “I wouldn’t mind, but it is getting a little late.”  _ And I'm hungry. _ Purposefully, he placed his hand on her back and tried to be present while resisting the urge to get up, eat, and ready for bed. He also needed to stay awake, which was proving a little difficult. 

“How many girls have you dated, Kanan?” She was a little bruised and vulnerable. Actually, her voice was even, with a note of curiosity, but he could feel the hurt in the Force. Their bond had been strong enough recently that, even when he wasn’t trying to connect (or couldn’t connect) to the Force, he could feel a lot of it around her. 

Instead of a playful response, he opted to be sensitive to this whispering of the energy she exuded. He thought for a minute. “Well, I’ve taken a lot of girls out on dates,” he started. 

“No, not just dates, I mean full on relationships.”

Kanan furrowed his brow, his mouth pulled into a line. Salia was the only girl coming to mind readily as a fully formed relationship. He noticed that he felt very uncomfortable when remembering her. He’d made so many mistakes, but he’d also gotten to a better place now. Should he be happy to be rid of her, or linger on what he could’ve done differently? He tried to let go of those memories and came back to the present moment, here, wrapped up in Hera. 

“Not many,” he finally said, trying to reassure her somehow. He wasn’t sure why she was feeling down about this, but he definitely did not want to say the wrong thing. He looked down at her and found she was gazing up at him, waiting for more. He squirmed under her a little. “Probably only one, but maybe two depending on how you count it.” 

“What happened?”

Kanan shrugged, justling her head a little on accident. “Ah, I don’t know. I mean, I couldn’t really stay in one place very long most of the time, you know.” 

“So you broke up with them?”

“No.”

“Did you just leave without breaking up?”

“No!” He had just left a lot of the girls he’d been tenuously involved with, but he owed more to Salia than that. He groaned and started trying to get up. Hera let him this time. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to… I mean, I know you have a lot of hard memories in your past,” Hera was sincerely willing to let it go; he could feel it. He turned and surveyed her, and she looked sad. “I haven’t really done anything like this with anyone but you.” She was sitting up, looking down at the bed beside her. “I think I’m still very new to this,” she finished, chancing a glance up at him. 

“I am too.” Kanan sat back down next to her, even as he could feel tiredness and hunger washing over him. He put his arm around her. “You’re the only girl I’ve been involved with who’s really trusted me and if you want to know the whole past, I’ll fill in the gaps. The memories are a little washed out because, well, you know.” He had tried to drink away a lot of the pain from the war, but mostly he’d just forgotten many nights of his young adult life. 

“I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Hera insisted. Kanan smiled gently, happy to have someone who respected his boundaries and pain. She had never pressed to hear the war stories. She had so many of her own that he had never heard. She had been excited to hear about the temple and Master Bilaba anytime they came up, but she never demanded he tell her about them. 

“No, I’ll tell you if you really want to know,” he found himself saying. “Maybe you can help me figure out what the hell happened.”


	2. Definitely Not a Student

The hoverbus ride from the small Rori spaceport to the rural community where Kanan would be living and working was taking longer than taking the puddle jumper from Naboo had. Kanan, severely hyperspace lagged from the trip to Naboo, tried hard to sleep in the bus, arms folded and body spread out as much as possible within the small bench, but the space was limited and it was always hard for Kanan to sleep, even in the best conditions. Not to mention the bus was hot as hell, foreboding for him and the work he’d be doing here on this moon, outside all day, farming. He hadn’t taken three steps off of his transport onto Rori before he’d regretted choosing to wear pants and a thick shirt. He’d rolled up the sleeves to his elbows, but there was nothing he could do about the pants until he found a place to pull one of his two pairs of shorts out of his small bag of personal belongings. 

The bus was also  _ loud _ . It was full of students, all around his age, who were also going to be working on the Ornil Farm, and the energy there was like the trip back from Illum had been, though on that ride the excitement had made more sense to him--the young Jedi had all just had life changing experiences. Kanan’s insides squirmed uncomfortably as he remembered how invested he’d been in his religion back then. It had been a highlight of his life to get the kyber crystal that was now sitting neglected in the bottom of his bag, a marker that the Empire wanted him dead. 

No, these kids in the bus with him were excited about being done with their recent school term and, presumably, the partying they’d get up to here on Rori. Kanan had heard that university students were pretty good at letting loose between school years and he’d heard, too, that this was a good place to see them in action. Looking around, he could tell that, after he’d gotten some rest or caf, he’d be able to find a good time partying and getting lucky with a slew of beautiful young women. 

The bus rolled up to the outside of town finally and the crowd unloaded, the bus getting quieter as they left. Kanan pulled his bag down from the luggage rack above his head and slung it over his shoulder. As he stepped off the bus, he was met by ground that was not quite dry. He frowned, noticing the mud had squelched around his good shoes.  _ This is what I get for traveling in style _ , he thought. 

“Name?” a middle aged woman asked him before he could get moving. 

Kanan squinted down at her and then noticed the name badge she was wearing marked with Ornil’s brand. “Jarrus, Kanan,” he offered with some resignation. 

The woman typed it into her data pad, pulled up his file, said, “Oh, here you are,” and printed out a short document and ID card. “Here’s your dorm assignment, some legal information, and your clock-in card. Oh and a little map to help you get around, since this is your first time with us,” she explained, handing the things over with a big grin. 

“Hey, thanks,” Kanan said, taking them reluctantly and forcing a flat smile onto his face. He was too tired for this. 

“We’re happy to have you here at Ornil Farm!” she chimed, finally turning to talk to another student who had just stepped into the firm mud behind him. 

Kanan tried not to roll his eyes and took a quick look at the map, hoping to find his dorm quickly. He’d landed about mid-morning local time and wanted to take a nap before he hit whatever bar happened to be here in town.  _ Or at least try to take a nap _ , Kanan conceded. 

The town, Dystra, seemed to be abuzz with excitement about the incoming students. People were out, selling their wares or talking to friends and smiling, looking over to the influx of young people. Kanan gazed down at his map and walked pointedly to where he believed a bed with his name on it was. 

  
  


Finding his room was proving a little difficult, not because he couldn’t follow directions or make sense of the numbering system, but because the halls were busy with activity and the people filling them were distractingly attractive. Snippets of conversations filled his ears and the general air of excitement was finally starting to rub off on him, replacing his tiredness. It reminded Caleb briefly of the clone barracks after a victory in battle. Kanan chose not to linger on that memory too long and instead to focus on finding his new housing. 

Pushing past a small crowd and around a corner, he found his room, entered his keycode and slipped through the door into a quiet, narrow room. The humble space contained two beds against one wall and two sets of drawers on the other. There was even a window on the wall opposite the door. It wasn’t much, but it was better than a lot of the places he’d stayed in the last few years. 

There was also a large man sitting on a chair--the only chair Kanan could see--near the bed close to the window. He was eyeing Kanan with no hint of the goodwill that had filled the air just outside the door. Kanan simply absorbed it for a moment; he was used to being appraised by Jedi, women, and would-be-brawlers. He dropped his bag on the bed near the door, presumably his, and opened it up to dig around for a pair of shorts and a lighter shirt. 

“The name’s Baraga,” the other guy said, his voice a low rumble. “I guess we’re roommates.” 

“Yeah, I guess so,” Kanan answered. “Kanan,” he added.

The large man stood up, looming larger now and seeming to grow as he got closer. As Kanan found himself looking up into the face of the big stranger. Kanan was tall, and this guy was more than a couple of centimeters taller than him, but the size was in the breadth of his shoulders, chest and arms. Kanan didn’t chance a look down at his legs, but he guessed they were probably barrellish. Baraga stuck a hand out for a handshake and Kanan reached out and gripped the man’s enormous hand firmly. Kanan had gathered that men like this guy tended to base a lot of their judgments about a person on the firmness of a handshake and Kanan didn’t want to appear weak. The two men all but broke each other’s fingers for a few seconds before releasing and staring each other down. 

“So, Kanan, I’ve got a few rules,” Baraga began, leaning against Kanan’s bed, folding his arms. 

_ Ugh, a power play, _ Kanan thought as he tried not to roll his eyes visibly. “Alright, let me have ‘em,” Kanan dared, folding his own arms, eyes flashing for a moment. 

Baraga smirked slightly. “The first one is don’t go digging around in my stuff,” he explained, throwing a thumb back to gesture behind him. 

“Great, and you don’t go through mine, easy,” Kanan agreed, gritting his teeth. 

“And,” Baraga began again. “Anytime you go out drinking, you’d better bring me along.” 

Kanan looked directly into Baraga’s nearly blank face and tried to pull some kind of sense out of it, but he was a little inscrutable. That is, he was inscrutable until an enormous bark of a laugh bursted out and he threw his head back, enjoying whatever joke Kanan wasn’t in on. Baraga clapped Kanan on the shoulder with a heavy hand and shook his head, still laughing. 

Kanan furrowed his brow at him, confused, but starting to smile slightly himself, maybe from his own discomfort. 

“Sorry,” Baraga finally said, “I just had to.”

“Did you?” Kanan responded, his smile more genuine now. 

Baraga shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, everyone at school knows I’m a joker, so when I saw I was rooming with somebody I’d never met, I mean, c’mon! How could I not?”

Kanan shook his head with a subtle eye roll, his smile lingering. “Well, I will tell you that I do a lot of drinking, so your side of that bargain might be a little more than you were asking for.” 

Baraga barked a single laugh. “Kanan, right?” Kanan nodded. “I have no plans to even remember this summer!” 

Kanan chuckled.  _ Me neither.  _

  
  


The town’s cantina was officially called “Ornil’s Outpost” but apparently everyone called it “The Outpost.” Feeling somewhat restored after a nap, Kanan and Baraga had made their way over. It had the obvious signs of being a bar; there was an outdoor section with hanging lights, a small crowd of people milling around outside the front door, and loud and muffled sound of dance music pumping out of it.  _ No bouncer, though _ , Kanan noted. 

They turned into the cantina and were nearly slammed with the full blast of music and chatter--the place was packed. “My gang should have a booth already,” Baraga told Kanan, shouting to get anything heard over the sound. “Whiskey, you said?” he confirmed, about to put in an order at the bar. 

“Yup,” Kanan shouted back. “On the rocks,” he added. 

Looking through the crowd to the booths, Kanan wondered how they’d ever make it over. The bar was so full of people, it seemed impossible. Baraga turned towards Kanan, handed him a short tumbler with a smile and got to work, separating the sea of people. Kanan followed close behind and took a sip of his drink. It was higher quality than he was used to and the burn was good. 

After pushing through the hot crowd, they made it to the booths. They were tucked away from the music slightly and, while not quiet, were noticeably quieter than the rest of the place. Baraga pushed past a few remaining loiterers and landed at an alcoved table with a sigh. 

“Hello!” he boomed loudly, missing the mark on just how loud he needed to be. “Got room for two?” he asked. 

A small girl shot out of the booth with a smile and yanked Baraga in with a laugh, sparing a look over at Kanan. “Who’s your friend?” she asked as Baraga sat down next to her. 

Kanan stood awkwardly, watching the girl on the other end of the table to see if she’d move to let him in. She had large hair, broad shoulders, and warm skin. And she seemed to be very engrossed in a conversation she was having with the person next to her. Kanan was having a hard time looking away as he waited for the social cue to sit. He heard Baraga clear his throat pointedly and the girl looked over, “Oh, sorry.” She scooted in and looked up to Kanan now with a small smile, wrinkling two bright green dashes that rested under her eyes. 

Kanan tried not to be too obvious when he decided to make the moves on somebody, but a natural part of the game was being at least a little obvious. Kanan sat down next to her, taking up a little more space than he really needed so he’d be a little closer to her and put his drink down on the table. He turned to her, to say something witty like “hi” but stopped when Baraga began from the other side of the table. 

“These are my friends,” he said, starting to do formal introductions. “This is Sola,” he said, gesturing to the small girl next to him who was now nearly wrapped around Baraga’s enormous arm. Her face was round, her lips were full, and her dark brown hair was cut asymmetrically. She smiled over, her eyes squinting. “Then we have Aeshi,” he continued indicating a Pantoran who sat on the other side of Sola. Their soft lavender hair set in a bun, and their face was long. 

“What’s up?” they asked, sounding not quite bored and not quite enthused.  _ And definitely not looking for an answer.  _

“And next to you is Salia,” Baraga finished. 

Salia pushed her hair behind her ear and gave Kanan a bashful look. “Hi,” she murmured. 

“And this is Kanan,” Baraga concluded, cutting Kanan off yet again. 

Kanan heard Sola say “nice to meet you,” but he was having a hard time focusing on pleasantries when he only wanted to talk to Salia. 

“Can we go dance?” Sola asked Baraga quietly. 

“I just got here,” Baraga protested feebly. Kanan took a swig of his drink and before he put the glass back down, Sola was pushing Baraga out of the booth towards the dance floor. “Good luck, Kanan,” Baraga said as he stood. 

“What do I need luck for?” Kanan joked, feigning confusion.

Salia scoffed next to him. Kanan turned and saw her rolling her eyes. “Get out of here,” she growled to Baraga, a reluctant smile growing on her lips as she waved him off. 

Baraga laughed and let Sola push him back towards the noise and the dancing. 

Kanan turned now to the others, unsure of what to say. He was a little reluctant to use a true pick-up line in front of the Pantoran,  _ Aeshi _ he remembered, but maybe he could get close without making it too weird. But, someone beat him to the punch again.

“So,  _ Kanan, _ ” Aeshi asked with a new brightness. “You don’t look familiar to me. Do you go to Graetana?” Their accent was not quite Coruscant but distinctly not outer rim. 

Kanan fought back the cough that was itching at the back of his throat from the liquor. “No.” He didn’t even know what that word or name meant. It could be anything, but he guessed they were probably asking if he attended their school. 

“Oh, okay, cool, cool, cool,” they nodded their head, lavender bun bobbing slightly. Their yellow eyes were slits now, investigating Kanan’s clean-shaven, young face. “You might run into some trouble with some of these people,” Aeshi said, gesturing back to the crowd. Kanan wondered for a moment why that would be. Maybe he looked older than his 20 years, and seemed like he might be trying to take advantage of younger people for… well, really any number of things. 

Kanan leaned back against the booth seat, making himself large and taking up the space he was entitled to. He deserved to be here, especially in this bar, as much as any other person there. “What kind of trouble?” Kanan asked now. 

Aeshi shrugged. “I don’t know, some of these people have friends in high places, so there’s that. But some of them also like getting caught in a tumble, so, who knows?” Aeshi sat up. “Oh, man! There’s Dua! Salia, do you mind if I go say hi?” Aeshi was nearly out of the booth by the time they finished asking. 

Salia sighed a small sigh. “No, yeah, you’re fine,” she said. “Oh, can you get us a couple more drinks while you’re up?” 

“Oh, for sure,” Aeshi promised, nearly gone already. 

Salia scooted over a bit, enjoying the room on the other side of her. 

_ Alone at last _ , he thought, hoping he could say something that would work. 

“So, you’re a student,” Kanan heard himself say. 

Salia looked over with a grin on her face, maybe trying not to laugh at him. “Yeah,” she said. “And you’re not? Or did you come here from somewhere else?” 

Kanan shook his head furtively. “No,” he began. “No,  _ definitely _ not a student.” He forced a laugh and wondered why the hell he was clamming up now. “That isn’t really going to cause any trouble, is it?” 

Salia shrugged. “Aeshi’s not exactly wrong,” she began. “Let me explain. They are all from wealthy families who never really had to work with their hands unless they wanted to. That’s why they’re here, not for the money like I assume you are. They’re here because they want to ‘better understand the agrarian system’,” she said it like a core worlder. “They’re going to go on to be politicians or opera singers or architects and they will draw on this three month experience to help them feel like they’re ‘of the people.’ They probably don’t want you here because you’re actually one of  _ the people _ .” She leaned back. “And they’re here to be away from their family’s watchful eye so they can get drunk all they want.” She looked around at the crowd when she finished and frowned slightly. The look reminded him of Master Kenobi or Master Windu when the younglings were rowdy. “So, yeah, maybe you’ll have a hard time with a few people.”

Kanan looked around, too. He could see that their clothes were not flashy, but they were not worn out. They had worn their “work clothes” if you could call them that. Flat colors and styles that were meant for farming, but hadn’t been worn before. Kanan looked down at his own shabby tunic and shorts, changed into specifically because of the humidity. He put his hand on his smooth chin pensively and returned his gaze to Salia who was still scrutinizing the crowd. She looked comfortable there in the silence now. Kanan couldn’t help but wonder, though, why she, a student at a fancy Naboo school, would not include herself in with them. 

“Thanks for the tip,” he finally said. 

“I’m full of ‘em,” she replied with a smile. 

_ Ah, an opening! _ “Oh, well, I could definitely use some tips,” Kanan told her, his voice extra smooth. He watched to see how it’d land and was disappointed when she cocked a single eyebrow at him. She was still, smiling, though, so that wasn’t all bad. 

“Oh, yeah?” she asked, putting a finger on her cheek, eyeing him suspiciously, her smile guarded now. “What kind of  _ tips _ are you looking for?” 

Kanan shrugged. “Whatever you’ve got would be good, I’m sure,” he answered. 

“Uh-huh.” She nodded slowly, giving him a quick up-down now. She turned back to her drink and took a long swig. She frowned down at the glass when it was empty. “So, where are you from, then?” 

“A little bit of everywhere,” Kanan demurred, hoping to recover. “What about you? You… remind me of somebody...” He couldn’t quite put his finger on who, though.

“Have you ever known any Kiffar?” she questioned, pointing to her tattoos. “We all have them.” 

It clicked; she reminded him of Master Vos, who Kanan did not know well. The Master had taught them hand-to-hand combat once and had seemed like a livewire. It had been a memorable class and, in fact, one of the most useful for this bar-crawling iteration of his life. 

“So, you’re from Kiffar?” he asked. 

She shook her head. “It’s Kiffu, but yes,” she explained. “Yeah, I’m from a country community there and I miss it.” She looked down into her drink sadly. 

“What do you miss about it?” Kanan asked, desperate to keep her talking and to distract her from asking him more specifics about his background. 

She launched into a really detailed recollection of some of her life back on Kiffu and Kanan listened actively, encouraging her to continue. He slowly became intoxicated and he couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or her voice that was more effective in dulling out the sounds around him. Fear that he’d forget everything she said crept in, but there was no fighting back the relaxing calm that fell over him. He seldom experienced anything close to bliss, so he might as well enjoy this while it lasted. 

A waiter droid came by with two clear blue drinks. “Oh, these must be from Aeshi,” Salia said, stopping her story long enough to explain. “This is Kiffar Ale.” Kanan tasted it and liked how malty it was. 

She got back into it, and he realized he didn’t even feel the sadness he would have expected to feel when someone else discussed their home and youth with such love and detail. She felt a deep connection to her people and the culture, even if there were things about the culture she’d actively needed to act out against. Kanan didn’t even know what planet he had been born on. Not even a system. His culture was entirely the Jedi temple, a culture now dead. The sadness at that realization lingered for only a moment as he was brought back to Salia and her description of the pond she sometimes snuck off to. 

She laughed a little sipping her ale briefly before saying, “I was once caught there, swimming naked in the summertime.” Kanan tried not to picture what she must’ve looked like, but the image came anyway. “I wasn’t ashamed, exactly, but I remember being mad. My brother kept swimming there for years, but I was never allowed to. The sneaking became less of a game and more of a necessity at that point.” Salia looked back over to Kanan who was a little embarrassed when their eyes met. “Oh, sorry,” she said, “I’ve just gone on and on about me.” 

“That’s fine,” Kanan said, squirming a little as he could feel the questions coming. The crowd had started dying down. Kanan felt like the night was still young, but between the lightspeed travel and his interest in Salia, maybe his body clock was off.. “I mean, it was nice,” he recovered. 

Kanan saw Salia watching him out of the corner of his eye. Kanan turned to meet her eyes. “You seem like you keep your cards close,” she commented

He shrugged with a nod. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” 

There was a murmur through the thinning crowd and Kanan could hear, with great focus, the familiar sound of voices through masked vocoders. He hadn’t seen any soldiers around before, but maybe they’d just newly arrived, called in to watch the students. 

Salia tried not to make her distaste too obvious. “They followed us,” she explained as the white heads of stormtroopers bobbed through the crowd. 


	3. What about you?

“There is a curfew in place here and this location must be vacated. You all have 20 minutes to get back to your dwelling places,” the vocoder voice of a woman said after the music came to a stop. A low, anxious buzz filled the room as the inebriated crowd tried, and failed, to talk about the bad news without attracting any attention from the stormtroopers.

Kanan groaned and downed the last of his drink. Salia did the same and started scooting all the way around the table to leave on the other side of Kanan. He noticed and was trying not to give up hope, but it seemed pretty obvious that Salia was not interested. 

“Guess I better get here earlier next time,” Kanan commented once he made his way up next to her. He was trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, but also definitely didn’t want this conversation to be over yet. 

Salia smirked over at him. “We were all pretty surprised when Baraga was so late, but he can’t hold his liquor, so it’s probably for the best,” she replied. 

As if on cue, the large man appeared nearly from nowhere. “Well, this is great,” he said with thick sarcasm. “I thought we’d get a break from this.” 

Salia looked concerned. “Yeah, me too,” she said quietly, sighing. She stopped at the bar to settle her tab and Kanan realized he had purchased no drinks. He turned to Baraga who was very fixated on Sola.  _ I’ll just take care of it later,  _ Kanan thought. 

They stepped out into the night air which, somehow, was not nearly as cool as Kanan had expected it to be. Baraga and Sola broke out ahead of them, chatting and laughing, arm in arm. Kanan turned to Salia and thought quickly. She was looking at him with maybe expectancy? Kanan cleared his throat and offered his arm with a small bow and then added, with an affected core world accent, “Mi’lady?” 

She laughed and Kanan’s heart sang as she took his arm. After a short silence, Salia spoke. “So, Kanan from a little bit of everywhere, why are you  _ here _ ?”

Kanan shrugged. “The job sounded good,” he began. Then, going out on a limb, he added, “And I heard that the girls here are beautiful.” He peered over to see what she’d think. Looking at the ground, she was smiling, but maybe rolling her eyes too. “So far, I don’t have any reason to doubt that.” He looked directly at her now, hoping she’d get his meaning. 

Still smiling, she glanced over. With a little embarrassment, she said, “Thanks.” She looked back out, ahead of her where Baraga and Sola were. She seemed pleased, and then a new glint of something flashed across her face. “You’re not bad yourself,” she confessed. 

Kanan grinned now and put a hand on hers. Feeling like he’d all but sealed the deal, he risked a lot and asked, “What do you say about finding someplace a little more private for tonight?” 

Salia laughed in response. “Sorry, it’s not that easy,” she answered. 

“Well, what do I need to do?” Kanan asked after a moment, his ego bruised. They’d come up on his dorm building, but kept walking to hers. 

Salia turned to face Kanan when they stopped at her door. “Be patient,” she confided quietly with an earnestness Kanan hadn’t seen in their flirting so far. 

Kanan gulped and nodded in response, feeling nervous and pierced through by her gaze. Kanan felt himself gaping at her. Her face was interesting  _ and,  _ Kanan thought,  _ beautiful.  _ Something had changed. “Yeah,” he finally croaked out. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Have a good night, Salia.” He affected an air of propriety and bowed slightly. He heard her laugh and then looked up, his own victorious grin appearing.

She turned to the control pad and opened the door, slipping through. “You too, Kanan,” she returned quietly.

Their eyes met briefly again before the door slid shut. 

  
  
  


The room was dark, but warm. Caleb was huddled around many other younglings, in the middle of a short lecture on the Jedi Code. They’d been doing discussions on the code for a few weeks, one topic at a time. Today, the topic was attachment and the instructor was Master Luminara. 

“Attachment can lead us to clouded judgment,” she explained. “When we are more attached to a person, place, thing, or idea than to the will of the Force, we can put ourselves or others in danger.” She paused and looked around at the younglings. Her posture was perfect and her authority was obvious. She seemed to be deciding whether or not she should share the thought that had come to her mind. She paced around the room, turning her straight back to them momentarily. 

“I have noticed,” she began with new confidence, “That the most common forms of attachment amidst the Jedi are to our own comfort, and between master and padawan.” She turned to look down at them. “Attachment to comfort will prevent us from discovering the will of the Force, and attachment to your master will limit your ability to see the will of the Force clearly.” 

Caleb felt a fear inside him. Fear that attachment would create problems for him. Or maybe fear at Master Luminara’s hard look. 

“You must be diligent in remaining unattached.” She finished. 

Caleb, ever-questioning, didn’t dare ask anything now. 

  
  
  


It hadn’t been tough for Kanan to get up and get moving in the morning. He’d been sitting awake already when he heard Baraga’s alarm chime. Kanan gave Baraga a chance to get ready and walk over with him, but he was anxious to get on with the day and left on his own when Baraga was still sleeping ten minutes later. 

The morning sun was still low in the sky and the air was thick, but not quite hot yet. Realizing it would be much hotter in the middle of the day, Kanan grumbled,  _ well, that's just great. _ He made a mental note to make sure he got enough water over the course of the day. 

A couple of tired storm troopers stood on a corner nearby, holding blasters in front of them. They were probably the night shift waiting to be relieved. Kanan did his best to be nondescript. 

Kanan stepped off the boardwalk unto squishy, though not quite muddy, ground and saw that he was one of the first getting to the farm. It seemed Salia was right about these other kids; they weren’t used to putting in a long day of physical labor. 

  
  


The work had been easy, though the day had been hot. The shuttle had come through the middle of the fields around something like lunchtime with water and ration bars. Kanan was fairly used to skipping meals, but a free lunch was never bad when it left more money for drinks. The sun was still a little high in the sky when it was time to head back. 

It had been solitary labor. He’d been able to see people nearby, though they weren’t so close that anyone could’ve been able to have a conversation. When he found himself back in the crush of people who were attempting to leave for the day, he was surprised to see so many other workers. He was also surprised to spot a tied back poof of brown hair that he believed belonged to Salia. He felt compelled to see if it really was her. She turned her head and Kanan spotted the bright green tattoo on her cheek. He tried to push his way through the mass of people towards her, but he was swept up in the crowd to a different card reader pad. He resigned himself to trying to find her after they’d both made it through. 

Kanan knew that if he wanted to, he could land some other girl. There were plenty of them. In fact, he was nearly surrounded by girls that he guessed would be more receptive than Salia had been. But he kind of liked the idea of the challenge. Kanan hadn’t properly courted anybody, yet. His style had been much more in line with what he’d learned about attachment. And it wasn’t so much that he still lived the Jedi Code--he didn’t--it was more that he knew it’d be easier to just up and leave when he needed to. Still, he'd talked himself into believing that non-attachment was probably best for more reasons than that. 

Salia was pretty and interesting enough that Kanan could see himself enjoying trying out a longer arrangement. Things here on Rori would end for the two of them when the job did, so what would it hurt to play her game? 

Emerging on the other side of the crowd, Kanan saw her again, nearly at the boardwalk already. Kanan stepped lively and strode nearby, but not so near it was obvious. Sola, he guessed, was standing on the other side of Salia. Seemed like getting Salia alone would be the hardest part of all of this. 

"Hi." Kanan tried to get their attention with a wave. He smiled and tried to look generally friendly, desperately hoping Salia would be happy to see him. 

Salia’s face turned towards him, her mouth gaping a little with surprise. Her eyes were especially big. When she recognized him, she said, “Oh! Kanan.” She smiled.

Kanan was happy to know she remembered him. It seemed irrational for him to think she might have forgotten him but stranger things had happened. 

“Hi, how are you?” she asked. 

Kanan shrugged, “I’m alright.” He was smelly and he needed a drink. “How are you?” 

“I’m good,” Salia answered back. “Do you remember Sola?” she asked, seemingly jabbed by a forgotten elbow. 

“I do, yes. How’s it going?” Kanan waved over to her with something like a smile. 

“I’m fine,” she said quietly. Her voice was different today. Softer. The volume of the cantina probably had made her louder. Or maybe the alcohol had. 

Kanan stepped up on to the boardwalk, but it was a little narrow for the three of them to walk next to each other. Kanan opted to walk behind the two girls and Salia seemed to be okay with just looking back occasionally. They talked briefly about how the first day of work had gone.

“I forgot just how hot it gets. I knew it would be hot, just… it is so hot.” Salia explained. She shook her head as she said it. Kanan watched the poof of hair move behind her. 

“Oh, right, and how we have to shower every day,” Sola agreed. “Such a pain.” 

Kanan did have quite a smell to him at the moment, but he’d been planning to deal with it later. It wasn’t that bad--he’d certainly smelled worse and gone longer without cleaning his body. “Are you two going to the Outpost tonight?” he inquired as casually as he could manage. 

The girls nodded. “But not until after we’ve cleaned up,” Sola said. 

“Mmm, I don’t know, I might just go now and get ahead of the rush,” Salia said, more to Sola than to Kanan. She did sneak a glance back at Kanan though. 

Sola groaned, “But then I have to walk over by myself!” 

“Bring Aeshi! Or get Baraga to take you!” Salia suggested. 

“Oh, alright.” Sola tried not to look too eager to take up the Baraga idea. They came up on the spot where they’d have to part ways and Sola left with a giggle and a “see you later!” 

Salia smiled, watching her leave and then looked over to Kanan. 

“Shall we?” he asked.    


“Yeah, sure.” They walked together towards the bar and Salia pulled her hair down as the air cooled slightly in town. Kanan was captivated by the way her hair moved as she shook her head. There was an indent where the tie had been, but it somehow grew to be very large, like it had been the night before. “This humidity,” she stated simply, as if he would understand what she meant by it. Kanan waited for an explanation, but none came. 

They rounded a corner and spotted some stormtroopers. Kanan could feel Salia tensing up next to him. “Salia, it’s alright,” he said, trying to soothe her. 

Salia nodded, with not a little embarrassment. “I know, I know. It’s just… they make me nervous.” She looked at them out of the corners of her eyes. 

“You’re probably not the only one that feels that way,” Kanan assured her. 

“I know I’m not, it’s just… complicated.” Salia turned into the bar and Kanan followed. 

  
  


Salia, trying to fight the cold sweat that often accompanied her fight or flight reflex, headed straight to Selda who smiled and got a tall glass out. “Two please,” she asked. He nodded and poured the Kiffar Ale into two tall glasses. They were frosty, Salia saw and she was happy to hold the cold drinks in her hands. “Thanks,” she said, turning to find a seat. Maybe the same booth as last night. 

Their table from the night before was open and they slid in on either side naturally. “We’ll have to let people in if we stay for very long, but for now it’ll be nice and open,” she explained. He nodded and she pushed the drink towards him. 

“Thanks,” he said warmly. He lifted the glass towards her and then stopped. “Is there something you say before drinking on Kiffu?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowed. 

Salia smiled and shook her head a little. “Nothing special, just cheers,” she filled him in, raising her own glass. 

“Well, cheers, then,” Kanan said. They took their swigs and Salia welcomed the memories that accompanied the very refreshing, cold drink. 

Kanan had been more of a hanger-on than she was used to, but she didn’t mind. At Graetana, she was often overshadowed by people that she associated with and somehow when Salia tried to use, for instance, Sola’s tricks on the boys she was interested in, it just didn’t work. Aeshi, too, seemed to have no trouble at all making and keeping friends. 

No, she was apparently too guarded and quiet. Any relationship she had had needed a lot of time to become more than passively amiable. Even with friends, it seemed like it took her a long time to form close connections. 

Part of it was the ability to look into people’s emotions via grazing clothing or borrowing a pen. She was never sure how much to let on that she’d figured out and usually opted to try not to reveal anything. Instead, she held that special information herself and was never sure how to reveal that she knew it. The emotional ability, psychometry, was one that not a few Kiffar had. Salia’s was not especially strong--she never saw memories when she touched items--but it was sensitive. It often happened, unbidden, in big groups, just bumping up on people. 

Back home, everyone knew that there was probably someone in the family who had it and it was commonplace to just talk about the memories and feelings people felt from others through this conduit. That was part of why being away from home was so hard. Kiffars were not well known off-world and how was she supposed to explain this to everyone she met? And how was she supposed to deal with the one-sided intimacy, often not consensual, that it left her with?

She had felt Kanan’s shirt on her shoulder before even knowing his name the night before. She had felt deep exhaustion immediately. Later, when she had walked home with him, she’d felt his sadness. 

“So,” he began, snapping her out of her recollection. “What are you studying over there?” He gestured vaguely towards the sky, indicating Naboo. 

“Sociology.” Salia had had this conversation a thousand times and wasn’t exactly interested in it, but she didn’t think Kanan was either. She must’ve been really zoned out for him to ask this, under duress. He made a face indicating that he was impressed, but also that he didn’t know what it was. She smiled. “It’s the study of society and the way it operates, basically. The way that people interact with each other. How we form groups and what that means.” She was simplifying it the way she had a thousand times, but she added something she often didn’t add. “I was drawn to it as an avenue to justice and reform, but I don’t know that I’ll get anywhere with it.” 

Kanan nodded slowly. “Where would you do the reforming?” he inquired. 

Salia looked up to him with a bit of an embarrassed grin. “I don’t know, that’s the problem,” she explained. “I used to think I’d take it home and just tell everyone about all the issues I had learned about and noticed there and that people would just come around. But, that seems a little naive. Politics won’t work either. Although, maybe as counsel to politicians, it could.” She trailed off a little looking into her drink. 

“Why not politics?” he asked innocently. 

Salia looked over to him, smiling ruefully. “You probably aren’t aware of the farce of a government we currently have,” she started. She smiled, amused, when he started looking around nervously. Sedition and treason were places she was scared to be, but they had not gotten there yet. There was still free speech--to a point, just not free action. No, Trigo had proven no treasonous action would be permitted. Even if it was good and treasonous. 

“I’m not built for politics anyway,” she slouched back in the booth as she said it. “Maybe in my town, but not in any kind of big, meaningful way.”

Kanan waited a minute before saying, “Sometimes the small ways are better.” 

Salia looked over to him. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “Especially with things as they  _ currently are _ .” She gestured with a single hand in the air. She toned back her ill-speaking of the Empire for his comfort, but he still looked a little nervous. “What about you, Kanan?” she asked, picking up her own drink.

“What about me?” he asked with a grin, apparently happy to be unhelpful. 

“What are you trying to do?” She didn’t want to ask anymore than that. This was open enough that he could decide how much to reveal. She remembered that sadness and exhaustion she’d felt from him and wanted to respect his privacy. 

He shifted his weight a little and looked away, clearly uncomfortable. “I’m just trying to survive,” he said finally, looking back. She was smiling sadly at him when he met her eyes. He did a bit of a double take. “And forget,” he added, taking another sip of his ale. 

She simply said, “What do you usually do to forget?” 

Kanan blushed a little and Salia thought it was incredibly charming. “Well,” he began, shifting awkwardly. “The liquor helps sometimes.” He stopped, he wouldn’t meet her eyes. 

She grinned devilishly as she had all but snared him in revealing his intentions. “Oh, you’re one of  _ those _ boys,” she taunted. Kanan looked found out and Salia couldn’t blame him, but she also wasn’t going to let him off the hook so quickly.

A server droid came to the table. “Anything I can help you with?” she asked. 

“Another two of these, please,” Kanan said before Salia could open her mouth. 

“Can we get the kefta plate, too?” Salia added. 

“Of course!” the droid headed off. 

Kanan looked impressed. “Oh, Salia, are we having dinner now?” he asked with a smirk. 

Salia rolled her eyes but couldn’t help smiling when he said her name. “I mean,  _ I  _ am definitely having dinner. The plate is pretty big if you want to share.” 

Kanan squinted over at her, feigning betrayal. 

“I could buy you your own, if you want.” Then more tentatively, she added, “We could even call it a date if I did.” 

Kanan looked like he was going to protest her buying him dinner, but he stopped when it would’ve looked like turning down a date. He looked down for a moment, biting his lip. “You’ll have to let me return the favor,” he finally said, meeting her eyes. He looked hopeful and it suited him. 

Salia found herself grinning broadly, “Of course.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It'll pick up soon, trust me.


	4. Lone Wolf

The next day was a lot like the first. Planting seeds in a field, hot and under the sun. Today’s seeds apparently needed more attention than yesterday’s, and had to be placed carefully. This meant that people were working in smaller sections. No one talked to Kanan in the first half of the day, but he did overhear a lot of what his neighbors shouted to each other. Mostly they talked about what they’d been up to since school had ended and how hot it was. 

Left alone with his thoughts, Kanan reflected on the night before. It hadn’t been long after they’d eaten their kefta that Salia’s friends had come over to their table. Kanan and Salia had sat close together at that point and Kanan had been anxious about the way he’d smelled, but Salia seemed to prefer sitting closer to him than to Sola on the other side of her. “Some date,” Kanan had whispered with a crooked smile. He’d been very pleased to hear her giggle. 

He’d left before she did, mostly because he really needed that shower, but it had meant that he hadn’t made any arrangements for another date. He hadn’t been able to say the thank you he’d wanted to, either.

He was anxious to tell her how unusually interested he was in her and how at home he felt, compared to normal, when she was talking. He wanted to explain to her that he considered himself lucky to have had so much time with her alone. Kanan didn’t know how Salia would respond, but he’d romanced other girls successfully with words like these. Maybe they’d work on her, too. 

At the lunch shuttle stop, Kanan filled up a large canteen of water he’d been using, drank nearly the entire thing, and filled it again. The water was cold and it gave him a brief reprieve from the heat that pressed on him from sides. There wasn’t a spot on his body that wasn’t sweaty, so he knew he needed the water. 

They'd provided some kind of hearty sandwiches today which, Kanan learned, they did three days a week. _Not bad,_ Kanan had thought when he overheard it. It was during this lunch break that somebody addressed him with a "hey, you, where are you here from?" 

"Oh, nowhere, really." 

The questioner, a young, slender, human man nodded, seemingly impressed. "So you're an _off-worlder_ wherever you go?" He said the word with disdain. 

Kanan was sure this conversation would not end well if it didn’t end here. "Look, you’re not gonna want to mess with me, buddy," he answered evenly. 

Luckily for him, the other guy didn't press any further and Kanan had already turned the other way to head back to the field and to work. 

"Seems like a lone wolf," he heard somebody say. 

  
  


It had already started cooling off when it was time to head home. The humidity must not have been as bad today. Kanan walked with a bounce in his step towards the check-in site, expecting to see Salia. Scanning intently, he searched for her hair, her tattoos, her height and body shape. He even listened for her voice, though it was so noisy he wasn't sure he'd be able to pick it out even if he did see her from afar. 

He looked and looked, scanned his card and looked. The crowd thinned out and he didn't see her. Not sure what to do, he decided to stand near the edge of town, watching and waiting to see if she would come this way. 

_This is dumb, what am I doing? There are hundreds of girls here and I’m chasing after one?_

He waited a few minutes there before he decided to try The Outpost. Maybe she was already there. He hoped she was already there because, he realized, he wouldn't know where else to look for her. The bar was not quite busy yet, and had no indication of Salia anywhere. 

Crestfallen, Kanan decided to go get a shower now. Why did he feel so disappointed to not find her. _There's always tomorrow._ He looked down at his feet. 

_Is there?_

He felt a heavy clap on the shoulder and looked up, shocked. 

"Baraga!" he exclaimed. 

"Hiya, buddy. I kind of feel like you've been avoiding me. You haven't been, have you?" Baraga looked like he had been badly sunburnt and smelled musky. 

Kanan tried not to recoil. "No, not at all," he managed. 

"You want to head to the bar together tonight?" Baraga asked. "I need to take a shower, but that shouldn't take too long." 

"Yeah, of course." Kanan realized Baraga might have some information about Salia through Sola. But how to ask without making it obvious…? 

"It’s friends night for the others," Baraga began, "which means we get to have _our_ weekly friends night." 

"Does everybody do friend’s night?" Kanan asked, happy to have had the topic introduced easily. 

Baraga smiled, a twinkle in his eye. They'd made it to their building and they stepped inside, heading towards their dorm room. "No," he finally revealed. "Who are you wondering about?" 

Kanan tried not to be embarrassed, but was pretty sure that the tone in Baraga's voice meant he already knew. 

"I thought so," Baraga let him off the hook. "Salia's really nice." He looked very pleased with himself. 

Kanan tried not to crumple. Was it really so obvious? Not only was he flirting with disaster, tempting attachment, he was doing it openly, apparently. "Yeah, she is," he heard himself say. 

Baraga guffawed as they stepped into their room. They collected their things to take to the communal showers and Baraga shared some dating tips ("move fast, but not too fast," "make sure you ask her about her interests," "don't assume you know what she's thinking--trust me, learned that one the hard way"). 

"I haven't done a full relationship before," Kanan confided, over the half shower walls, oddly at ease with Baraga. "But I think that's what she wants." 

"Yeah, she’s not easy to get close to and she prefers the long game." Baraga looked like he couldn’t be any more gleeful. "What's happened so far between you two? I mean, she's definitely interested, so that's taken care of." 

Kanan blushed again. "Wait, what do you mean she's definitely interested?" 

Baraga laughed as they got dressed. "Kanan, you should've seen her last night after you left." 

Kanan waited for him to say more, but Baraga did not continue. What _had_ Salia been like after he'd left? 

"You've had a couple of night's good talks?" Baraga asked. "Or more than that?" 

"Just talks," Kanan was, too his own surprise, not embarrassed about making that distinction. 

Baraga stroked his chin thoughtfully. "What do you talk about? Do you flirt?"

Kanan shrugged, hemming and hawing. "I mostly let her do the talking." 

Baraga looked nonplussed, still perched thoughtfully on a bench . "Hmm," he hummed. "That's interesting; she's not usually a talker." Baraga stood up, and Kanan followed suit. "Should we head over?" Baraga asked. 

Kanan encouraged Baraga to get dinner at The Outpost so that he'd not get so drunk so quickly. It was surprising coming from him since just last week his goal had been to get drunk as quickly as possible. But Kanan wanted to see if he could get more out of Baraga about Salia and he was fairly certain that sloshed Baraga would not be helpful. 

Baraga had laughed a little when Kanan's kiffar ale showed up at the table. He shook his head, taking a sip of his own frothy beverage. 

"What?" Kanan finally asked, a bit of a smile playing on his face. 

Baraga leaned back and looked pleased. "You're drinking her drink," he observed, seemingly with no judgment. 

Kanan shrugged. "It's good," he said, taking another sip. 

Baraga nodded, conceding. "That's true." He threw a sidelong look at Kanan. "You're well traveled, right?" 

Kanan shifted. "Depends on what you consider well traveled. I've seen a lot of places. Mostly the underbelly of a lot of places, but." He shrugged. 

"Kiffu?" Baraga asked. 

Kanan shook his head. "It doesn't sound like it has an underbelly, so I guess that's why I never made it." 

Baraga nodded, understanding something new that Kanan didn't. "Has she told you about Trigo?" 

Kanan shook his head simply, unsure if he wanted to hear about Trigo from Baraga or from Salia. 

"It's probably still too fresh." Baraga looked down at the table, a sadness in his face that made him look older. He looked up at Kanan. He seemed to be deciding what he should say. "I probably shouldn't tell you, but you're also probably one of the only people who doesn't know." 

"I don't think I want to know." Kanan’s voice was low and serious. 

Baraga looked surprised. "Really?" 

Kanan nodded. "If she wants to tell me, she can tell me." He leaned back in his seat. "And if I decide I need to know, I can ask." He folded his arms and thought for a minute. "I'd rather not know without her knowing that I know, if that makes any sense." He furrowed his brow at himself.

Baraga was even more surprised now. He started to smile and maybe even suppressed a chuckle. "Oh, it makes sense." 

Kanan was not at all sure what to make of the situation, so he opted to do his own prodding. “What about you and Sola? What’s going on there?” 

Baraga smiled and looked away a little bashful. He shrugged. “We were just kind of seeing each other back at school,” he began. “Well, truthfully, I’d been dating a few people all at the same time time--not exclusively and they all knew--but Sola surprised me here.” He shook his head. “I didn’t think I’d see her at all this summer, but she seems to be very interested.” 

“And are you?” Kanan pressed. 

Baraga locked eyes with Kanan for a moment before chuckling uncomfortably. He stammered for a moment. “I mean, yes,” he finally started. “She’s very cute, very enticing when she wants to be…” He trailed off a bit. 

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Kanan stated. 

“Yes,” Baraga responded. He bit his lip for a moment. “Honestly, we are a pretty easy pair, me and Sola. Things are just… simple with her. Nothing dramatic. It’s…” His mouth was a straight line, the closest thing to a frown Kanan had seen on him. “A little boring.” 

“Boring?” Kanan was astounded. 

“Yeah, I mean, it’s comfortable, yes, but there’s very little variety. I’m not sure that I want to just be with Sola, and the commitment is… daunting.” Baraga sighed and looked down at his drink. “But there’s no reason to break up with her at this point.” He took a swig of his drink and slammed the glass down with more force than he’d intended. 

“So, you don’t want to be tied down? Locked in?” Kanan grasped for the words. 

“Kanan.” Baraga leaned back and exuded wisdom. “Look kid--"

"Don't call me kid," Kanan warned. 

"Fine. How old are you? 19? 20?” Kanan nodded reluctantly. “I have dated my share of women and a few men. And I am a little older than you, and I can tell you that relationships are dangerous.” 

Kanan was surprised by how much like Master Luminara Baraga sounded. "Dangerous? What do you mean?" 

"I got out of a really serious relationship about a standard year ago, and the way it ended was just… too much." Baraga explained, looking pained. "I was… so vulnerable and it hurt. I was a mess for a long time." Baraga paused, looking down at the table. Then he straightened and sniffed once before looking directly ahead of him. "If I’m never in one relationship too long, there won't be any pain. Just fun." He finished with a small grin and a look at Kanan. 

Kanan nodded empathetically. He’d been living that very same life, but out of necessity. Something perked up inside him… a question. _Why would he choose this life when he could choose stability?_

Baraga got up to dance after the third drink and Kanan stayed behind, mulling it over more, during the course of the night. Stability sounded wonderful, but so far away. If he could just have the kind of stability he'd enjoyed as a youngling -- shelter, safety, food and water -- even emotional support… where would he be with that? What could he do? 

Kanan took a teetering Baraga home before too long and put the very large man to bed. They had closed out the place, staying until ten minutes before curfew ended. Baraga had definitely had one or two too many and Kanan was feeling unusually at ease and sleepy, so he'd probably had enough. 

Turned out the trick to comfy inebriation in this town was not eating and not flirting. 

"Kanan?" he heard from the doorway. He turned and saw Sola. 

Stunned, Kanan stood, his mouth hanging open. 

"I'm sorry," Sola began. "I thought Baraga would be back sooner." She looked down at her feet. "I'm stuck here, because of the curfew." 

"Huh." Kanan nodded thoughtfully. He could offer her his bed. Except where would he sleep? "How can I help?" Kanan asked. 

"Oh, I just wanted you to tell Baraga that I missed him tonight," Sola said. 

"I mean, you might see him tomorrow night before I do," Kanan explained. 

Sola shrugged, "No worries then." She started to slip out the door. "Thanks." The door shut. 

Kanan shook his head and laid down and, for once, fell asleep quickly. 

  
  


Kanan was out in the fields, but it was dark and cold. He was wearing his Jedi robes and they were a little too small; his wrists were bare and his hems were about half a meter away from the ground. The collar was itchy and tight against his neck. Stormtroopers came up to him, through the mist he hadn’t noticed. He ignited his lightsaber, knowing a fight had come and was surprised by how natural and warm the weapon felt in his hand. 

The stormtroopers--wait clone troopers?-- raised their guns and took aim. Kanan raised his lightsaber, ready to deflect the blaster bolts. 

Simultaneously, he heard the sound of their blasters firing and a woman shouting his name. He turned his face to the call, it was Master Billaba, “Kanan!” 

“Master?” 

Then it was Salia, “Kanan!”

He didn’t feel it, but knew he’d been hit. He woke up.


	5. This is Perfect

“Salia!” Aeshi’s voice called over. It was not the first time they had tried to get Salia’s attention by the sound of it. 

“Huh?” Salia responded. 

“I asked if you’re going to bring the water rig over,” Aeshi said, pointedly. 

Salia looked down at the hovering water container and then back up to Aeshi sheepishly. “Sorry,” she said, moving over to do her job, watering the newly planted seeds gently. Today was the last day of planting and these were the tenderest seeds of all. They were sensitive to how deeply they were planted and how dry or wet the soil was. There would be crews of people whose job for the next two weeks was solely monitoring these seeds. Salia stepped carefully around spots where seeds had already been buried and watered as directed while she went. Aeshi, she noticed, turned and continued carefully planting the seeds. 

Salia realized she’d been in her own head about a lot of things and had lost her train of thought and her focus. She’d been thinking about Sola and how head over heels she was for Baraga. And how worried she was about whether it would go well this time. Then she'd thought about Trigo and worried how he could be doing, if he was even--she banished the thought. This was an ever present worry, but sometimes it flared up in her conscious thoughts instead of a passive back-burner anxiety. 

She'd wondered too what Kanan would've thought about Trigo and all of that. She couldn't tell if he would be on her side about whether or not Trigo had deserved his punishment. She wouldn't ask too soon, but she wanted to know before things got too involved. 

Even with the threat of failure, Salia was struggling to focus on the work of watering. It was so mindless. Salia didn't mind when the work was tedious and the quality didn't have to be perfect, but when it was repetitive and exacting, it was hard to feel confident about what she was doing. 

It was hot today, too, but the lunch shuttle was set to come soon and the cool water would be refreshing. 

Her mind wandered again. 

  
  


Salia stepped up around the corner of the lunch shuttle and saw Kanan filling his canteen. She felt simultaneously excited and nervous. 

Kanan turned a little to look at the movement of her coming, and then did a double take. His naturally narrow eyes were open wide. "Salia," he said. His canteen overfilled a little and he fumbled to shut off the spigot and get his bottle closed and out of the way. He stepped towards her and leaned on the shuttle. He let out a short huff and then smiled down at her. "Hi." His voice was low and warm. 

Salia found that she was smiling, charmed by the awkwardness of it all. "Hi," she returned, suppressing a giggle. 

“Did you, uh, have fun last night?” Kanan asked tentatively. 

Salia wasn’t sure what to make of his tone. “Yes,” she told him. “We went out to eat and it was nice.” Salia leaned on the shuttle, too, and thankfully it didn’t move. Kanan nodded, looking away sheepishly. “What did you get up to?” Salia asked. 

“Baraga and I,” he started, folding his arms and resting his back against the shuttle, closer to Salia now, she noticed. “We got a couple of drinks.” He threw a sidelong look her way. She hadn’t really seen his eyes in the bright of day and they were incredible. The brightest blue green she’d ever seen on a human. 

“I didn’t get a chance to make a date,” he said quietly. 

“Oh,” Salia said, a new smile growing on her lips. “When did you have in mind?”

“Well, tonight would be nice, if you can.” Kanan was starting to smile himself, looking confident with his arms folded. 

“Sure.” Salia nodded and wasn’t sure if she was blushing or if it was just hot. 

“You know he’s not a student, right?” Olan Prine, Salia saw, had said it. She looked back to Kanan and noticed he’d arranged his expression to be blank, but guarded and a little hard. When she turned back to Prine, he was smiling. 

“Yes,” Salia responded. “Is there something wrong with that?”

Olan smirked. Olan Prine was a relatively well known bully at Graetana. He was studying political science and would be the slimiest Imperial they had before too long. He looked down on nearly everyone and was only on Rori to stay away from his “boring, loathsome home.” He’d made sure everyone had known it wasn’t about the work or the money for at least a few weeks before heading out for Rori. 

“I just don’t quite understand why he’s here, to be honest,” Prine purred, looking down at his fingernails. “Is it simply to work or is it to prey on weak minded, upper class women?”

Salia opened her mouth to defend herself and Kanan, but he put a hand on her arm. “It’s not worth it,” he said quietly. Salia realized her hands were balled into fists. She looked up at his face and the steam seemed to begin escaping. He led her by the arm to the other side of the shuttle, where there was no shade, but also no Prine. 

“He is just--!” Salia grumbled, kicking the mud beneath her feet. She looked back over to Kanan who was grinning slightly and squatting down, opening his lunch package. “Oh, I forgot…” 

“Share with me,” Kanan said. “We can get you more in a minute.” He handed her half of the sandwich. 

Salia took it with a little bit of resignation and chomped into it with some residual fury. She heard Kanan chuckle. 

“What?” she demanded, putting her hand on her hip. 

Kanan shrugged. “Nothing!” His grin was big now. 

“Oh, scrag , Kanan, what??” She squatted next to him. She would’ve flopped down if it hadn’t been muddy. They had chairs on the other side, in the shade.  _ And  _ she could give Prine a piece of her mind. 

He laughed now. Their eyes met, and Salia saw… admiration? “You’re just so worked up,” he explained. “It’s cute.” 

Salia’s face was harder for a moment-- _ cute?! I’m mad! Not cute!!-- _ but his eyes were bright and soft and she felt herself soften as well. 

Salia looked down at her food and finally let out a sigh. “His name is Olan Prine,” she said, her voice dripping with loathing. "Has he bothered you before?" 

Kanan didn't answer right away, but looked like he was thinking hard about what to say. 

"He has, hasn't he??" She started to stand up again to go shout at Prine, but Kanan took her hand and pulled her back down. His hand lingered in hers for a moment before he opened his canteen. "Why don't you want me to fight him?" Salia questioned. 

Kanan was in the middle of a gulp when she asked, but she could wait. 

"He just wants to get a rise out of people,” Kanan began. Salia frowned. "He's very good at it and I'm a hard target. He probably wanted the challenge." Kanan looked straight back at Salia and then smiled. “I also try to avoid getting into brawls when I’m on the clock.” 

Salia looked away. She guessed that Kanan hadn't meant to make her feel immature, but that feeling was there. Should she tell him? Should she let it slide? She remembered the deep sadness she'd felt from him. 

"I'm not a child," she heard herself say evenly. "And I know you didn't mean it that way," she said as he opened his mouth. 

"Well, I'm sorry anyway," Kanan said after a pause. 

Salia, feeling very nervous, put her hand in his. She felt a squeeze back and grinned. She peeked over at him and saw him smiling too. 

  
  


Kanan was working the planting tool. Before lunch it had been tedious, but fine. Now, it was incredibly difficult to focus. 

He'd been paired with a girl named Mari who seemed to have no problem watering and no interest in talking to Kanan. Before lunch, they'd gotten into a good rhythm, but now she was clearing her throat to get him to move on. 

_ Focus. Clear your mind.  _

It helped, but only as long as he diligently repeated the mantra. He was feeling excited in a way he hadn't been in years for a date he still needed to plan. So, he kept bouncing between elation at the memory of her hand in his and anxiety about what they would do that night. 

The afternoon seemed to drag on and yet move all too quickly and suddenly it was time to lay out a plan. 

Salia had found him before he had spotted her. 

"Hi," she said with a big grin, slipping her arm in his. Her smile somehow seemed to grow wider still. 

Kanan put his hand on hers for a moment. His heart was out of control. “Hey, so,” Kanan put his hand on the back of his neck. “I have a couple of options and I’m probably going to need your help deciding on what to do.” He looked back around to her, worried she might be upset. 

She shrugged. “Okay, what are you thinking?” She pulled her hair out of its tie and Kanan watched, again mystified, by the way it expanded. 

“Well, first, should this be a dress up or dress down affair?” he asked. “I don’t have much for fancy, but I’ll go take a shower and put on clean clothes if you want,” he smirked. 

Salia rolled her eyes. “What will we do if we don’t ‘dress up’?” 

“Explore.” 

“Hm,” Salia put her hand on her chin for, what Kanan thought, was a charade of pondering. “Dress down it is.” 

Kanan was going to need to find a better deodorizer soon. 

  
  


They’d walked through the markets, which Kanan hadn’t had a chance to see yet, and had bought a couple of small things and a big sun hat for Kanan ("Oh man! This is perfect!"). A few vendors offered nonalcoholic beverages that were good and cold. Others sold handmade items or imports. It was a surprisingly robust market scene for a rural moon, Kanan noticed. Maybe they came with the students. 

After exhausting the market, Salia had suggested the Ebeda Trail which, she said, was the closest thing to highlands they had in the area. Their muddy shoes stepped off the town’s boardwalk onto dry ground, a rarity on Rori. The trail was surrounded by tall grasses and led slowly uphill. 

Walking through the markets, they had been arm in arm on and off, leaving each other to peer in on something they’d been captivated by. Here, the trail was narrow enough that to be two abreast at a normal distance would be uncomfortable, so Kanan followed Salia, his hands swinging beside him, out in case she wanted one. 

The sun was starting to hang low, but they had a few more hours before they needed to be back in order to observe curfew. 

“You do this a lot, don’t you?” Kanan asked, noticing the ease about her stride. 

Salia looked over her shoulder at him. “I like walking,” she began. “I don’t do it as much as I’d like to.” 

“Why not?” 

She shrugged. “It seems like when I have time, it’s too dark to walk out by myself. I should be able to walk by myself whenever I want.” She sounded a little mad. 

“Why can’t you?” Kanan felt like there were a lot of things he didn’t understand, either about her high society or Kiffu or Naboo… He felt humbled by his lack of knowing and was reminded of the Jedi for a moment. 

“Well, I can,” she started. “No one is  _ really  _ stopping me. But there are things that women just aren’t supposed to do. Apparently it is ‘too dangerous.’ Maybe it is now with the Emp--” She huffed a sigh. “Naboo is a little better for that, at least.” 

Kanan mulled over a few options for what to say, but before he could, she stopped walking. 

Kanan followed her gaze. The Ebeda highlands were not really high, but they were high enough and Rori was flat enough that they could see a long way out in nearly every direction. There was a gentle rolling aspect to the land that was nearly imperceptible while on it. The farm they’d been working on, it seemed, was unusually even and flat. There were waist tall grasses around them and, off in the distance, tall thick reeds with bulbs on the end. The entire picture was made orange by the setting sun. 

“I love it up here,” Salia said quietly. “It’s serene.” 

Kanan noticed the absence of inorganic sound and thought that he had known a few Jedi who would’ve liked this spot for meditation. “Yeah,” Kanan responded, nearly breathless. He took a few more moments to just take it in and then turned to look at Salia. The sun was reflecting in her brown eyes in an interesting way and her skin seemed to be a warmer brown now. He reached his fingers out for hers and, when he found them, he saw Salia smile. 

She looked up at him. “What do you think?” she asked. 

"You had it right. Serene,” he repeated. 

“Excuse me.” There was some rustling nearby as other walkers, locals, moved past them on the trail, forcing them to stand closer. 

“Pardon us,” Kanan said cheekily, smiling down at Salia with a chuckle. 

Her face was so close. 

She laid her head on his shoulder.  _ Oh, kriff, she’s gonna smell me.  _ After a moment’s hesitation, he put his free hand on her arm. He felt her hand and arm on his back. He wrapped her up in his arms fully now. The embrace was exciting and comfortable. He heard her hum happily next to his ear and nearly had a heart attack. 

The sun was setting and the colors were changing. He didn’t pull away and neither did she. 

“It’s weird,” Kanan began. “I’ve done this before, but it’s not usually like this.” 

“Like what?” Salia asked, incredulous. 

Kanan grinned. “Usually I want to get moving on to the next thing, but right now I’m happy here, like this,” he explained. 

She pulled her torso away, but didn’t let go of him. She wanted to get a look at him. No, give him a look. Kanan laughed at the quirked eyebrow and disbelieving mask she wore. He pulled her back to him and heard her chuckle. 

More rustling nearby. Kanan peeked over and saw more walkers who would need to pass the young lovers. They seemed to be avoiding eye contact. They stepped into the grass to avoid the pair. 

“Maybe we should…”

“Yeah,” Salia said, pulling away, but finding his hand before he could get too far. 

They walked back, silently for a while, watching the sunset turn from pink to purple to a dark blue then black. It happened quickly here on Rori, but Kanan hadn’t seen it before. 

“You know, I was supposed to take  _ you _ on this date,” Kanan said. “Instead  _ you _ showed  _ me _ the most beautiful spot on this moon.” 

Salia smiled down at the ground, bashful for a minute. “I’m not usually so commanding,” she bantered. 

Kanan exaggerated his nod and understanding. “Oh, of course,” he said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “I’ll just have to try again, sometime, huh?” 

She laughed, Kanan’s heart soared. “Yeah, I guess so. I promise I’ll back off.” She crossed her heart. 

Kanan chuckled. He felt her hug his arm as they walked. 

“If we hurry, I think we can get one round at the Outpost,” Kanan suggested. 

"We might run into people we know," Salia cautioned. 

"Is that bad?" 

Salia shrugged. "There's something nice about being just us," she explained. "Plus I'm not sure I want everyone to know about...whatever this is yet." 

"What? Why?" He nearly laughed. 

Salia gave him a sidelong look. "People talk and try to get involved…" she trailed off. 

"Oh, so you want… whatever we are to be a secret?"

Salia's eyes grew wide. Carefully, she proceeded, "Yes, but not because I'm ashamed about it, just because it only belongs to us. At least for now." 

"Ah." Kanan nodded, finally understanding what she had meant. He was happy, too, that she had guessed his concern perceptively. "What do you want to do, then?" 

There was a long pause. They stepped on to the town boardwalk and were headed towards the dorms. The shops were closed now, but windows were lit and people were still out. 

The pause was long enough now that Kanan wondered if he'd done something wrong. He glanced over to read Salia's expression, but it was unclear. 

"I promise I didn't forget your question," she said. "I'm just thinking." 

Kanan rubbed his thumb over her hand in response. 

After a few moments more, Salia spoke. "I think I need to tell you something." 

Kanan's stomach dropped. He looked at her nervously. "Okay," he said tentatively. 

"You're not in trouble," she began. A sigh escaped her lips. "Have you ever heard of psychometry?" she asked.

Kanan searched his memory. The word sounded familiar, but he couldn't think of a possible definition. "I don't think so," he answered. 

"Okay, so, it's the ability to feel feelings or memories by touching an object," she explained. "Usually just a glimpse. It's pretty rare in the galaxy, but many Kiffar have some version of it." 

"I'm guessing you do?" Kanan interjected. 

She nodded. "Mine is sort of weak in terms of depth; I usually don't see any memories. Just feel feelings. But it's really sensitive." 

Kanan noticed that this explanation sounded rehearsed, like she'd had to explain it many times. "What do you mean by 'sensitive'?" he followed up. 

Salia shrugged. "Just the brush of clothes on my skin can trigger it sometimes." 

"Oh, so it's probably happened between us?" 

"Yeah," she said a little blankly. 

Kanan thought for a moment. What had she felt? Was this an invasion of privacy? Was it an invasion of privacy when Jedi used their force sensitivity to tune in to the emotions of others? 

They stopped walking. They'd made it to her dorm door. Kanan found her other hand and stood facing her, looking down into her face. Her eyes were filled with something… hope? And worry. 

"What did you feel…?" He gestured to himself. 

She hugged him to her and then said quietly, "Tired and sad, at first, but also happy."

Kanan looked down at her, surprised at both what she said and the hug, which he happily returned. "Happy is a little unusual for me," he commented. "When did that happen?"

"Today when I found you after work," she answered. 

Kanan was a little embarrassed; he'd apparently been very excited about their date. So much so that she hadn't sensed his anxiety. 

"I have more questions for you, but I think I'd better save them for another night," Kanan told her. 

"Why's that?" Salia hummed in response. 

Kanan shifted his weight to better support her body against his. He put one hand on her head, stroking her hair. "Because I want to have an excuse to see you again," he explained. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The hat!!


	6. The Here and Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you would like an idea what the music sounds like, try the Oga's Cantina soundtrack. "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge Oga's Cantina: R3X's Playlist #1" I didn't have a particular song in mind for the dancing in this chapter, so take your pick.

Kanan slipped into his room and was relieved to find it empty. He liked Baraga, but he wanted to get in bed and just be for a minute. He was riding the high of the evening and was sure he would fall asleep happily tonight. Or maybe he wouldn't be able to sleep because he was too happy. 

Kanan did his basics to get ready for bed and conceded that he needed to take a quick shower before he would really be ready. 

Their goodnight had been simple and, even though he wanted to kiss Salia and he thought she'd be fine with it, neither of them had made the move. Everything else had been thrilling enough. 

In the shower, Kanan thought about what the Jedi would think about this. What would his young self have thought about what he had become? 

Kanan had not been a stranger to women in the last year or so. He had convinced himself that his one-night-only experiences with them were in keeping with what he'd been taught about attachment. And since he had known that he might have to leave at a moment's notice, it was not really in his best interest to try to get more involved than that anyway. 

But this was new territory. Dates and  _ courtship _ were unfamiliar and the way that simply holding hands was heightened by the emotional connection was new, unfamiliar, and not what he was expecting. 

And, most surprising, he  _ liked it.  _

He finished his shower, got dressed and headed back to his room. He was lucky again and went to bed, uninterrupted by any well-meaning roommates. 

  
  


“Where were you all night?” Sola asked when she walked into their shared room. Salia was in bed, browsing the holonet headlines.

Salia looked over to Sola and shrugged. “Out for a walk,” she said. It was not a lie. 

Sola smiled while she got ready for bed. “You know we all noticed that Kanan was missing, too.” 

Salia tried not to smile, but couldn’t help it. She tried ducking behind the blue light of the holonet projection. 

Sola laughed. “You won’t get any trouble about it from me,” she remarked. “Aeshi on the other hand…” Sola finished her bedtime routine and looked over to Salia who was smiling idly, datapad switched off in her lap. “Oh, you’ve got it bad, huh?” Sola asked. 

Salia looked surprised and worried. “What do you mean?”

Sola couldn’t stop a chuckle from escaping. “You just seem very happy,” she explained. 

“Oh,” Salia said, smile returning. She sank down under the covers. “Goodnight!” 

The Imperial presence in the area had decreased recently. No one really knew why, but people were talking about it everywhere Kanan went--on his morning walk to the last day of work before the weekend, on the lunch break, and walking back into town and towards the bar. Many people breathed a sigh of relief and thought that maybe things could go back to normal now, but others had said that the Imperials must be busy doing something and that they shouldn't get their hopes up. 

Kanan was more inclined to enjoy the current absence knowing too well that he couldn't be safe when they were around, no matter what. When they were around, he'd keep his head down, but when they were gone, he could live more fully for a change. 

Kanan had been put on a watering crew that day and his watering rig was old and heavy. It had not been hard to push it around at the beginning of the day, but by the end, he'd become exhausted and was managing to move it only by throwing his entire weight against it. It had been the first physically tiring day so far and he was very happy to have two days off. 

Without thinking too much, he'd found himself in the Outpost, ordering a tall glass of water and a kiffar ale. It was early in the evening, so he found a booth without any trouble. He slumped back into the tall seat, glad to rest his overworked body. He shut his eyes for a moment and just took in the sounds around him and the feeling of the seat under him. 

"I thought I might find you here." 

He opened his eyes and saw Salia, holding her own ales and smiling down at him. She was wearing a shirt with a high neckline and no sleeves and Kanan was surprised by how broad her shoulders looked. Well, he was surprised about all of her, just the fact that she was there at all. 

"I think I fell asleep," he said sitting up stiffly. He scooted into the booth further to give her a little more space, but he found it was hard to move very much. Thankfully she didn't seem to mind that he'd given her so little space; she cozied up to him with a smile. 

"Oh, wow, you  _ are _ tired," she remarked after their arms had touched. 

"Oh, that fast, huh?" Kanan asked. 

"Yeah, it's just a flash, and that was a very strong one," Salia explained. "What did they have you doing today?" Her tone was incredulous. 

Kanan explained that the water rig was technically hovering, but it was a big old one and hadn't cooperated well. "I like to think of myself as stronger than average--"

"Humble." 

"--but this. Wait a minute." Kanan shot a look of feigned hurt at Salia, pressing his hand against his heart. She was smiling back at him coyly. 

"Go on," she encouraged. 

"Well, I was just going to say that it was a lot of hard work, even for me, a strong man," he laid the sarcasm down thickly, crooked smile reaching his lips. He felt Salia take hold of his bicep in her hands. Her touch felt electric to his tired body. 

"And I was just saying that  _ humility  _ seems not to be your strength, Kanan," Salia explained, looking over at him from half opened eyes, lashes long and alluring. The smile on her face was small, but enough. 

"That's probably more on the nose than you know," he commented, leaning back on the bench again, shutting his eyes for a minute. He liked to think of it as confidence, but there were a few areas where it tipped over toward arrogance and he knew it. 

"Well, before everyone else gets here, I wanted to tell you that I enjoyed last night," Salia said, her tone indicating she wasn't done. Kanan felt her hands slip away and he opened his eyes just enough to see her sipping her drink in the pause. "And I thought I'd tell you that they all noticed we were both gone." 

Kanan opened his eyes now to look at her. She returned the look. Neither of them spoke for a moment. 

"What do you think about that?" Kanan asked. 

Salia sighed. "I guess last night was all we were going to get to ourselves," she said, shrugging. 

Kanan nodded solemnly. "So what do we tell them if they ask?" 

Salia smiled, sipping her drink. "What do you think we should tell them?" 

Kanan shrugged. "I guess that we’re dating?" He looked to Salia maybe for approval, maybe just for a reaction. 

She looked impressed. "Are we?" 

Kanan shifted in his seat. A few of his muscles in his torso screamed in protest. "I mean, we went on a date with the intention of going on more, right?" 

Salia's expression melted into comfort. "Yeah, you're right," she looked down at her drink, one hand holding it and the other arm resting on the table. 

"We can be more than that," Kanan heard himself say. "But we don't have to tell them." Salia's smile grew. 

After a long pause, Salia said, "That sounds nice. You know, I usually don’t move so fast."

“No?” Kanan asked, curious to hear more. This was very slow compared to his average relationships which would’ve been quite over by now.

Salia nodded. “People seem to think I’m standoffish.”

Kanan grinned, proud of himself. “Well, I guess I got lucky then.” 

She breathed a chuckle. “Yeah, or maybe I did.” 

Kanan managed to get his arm to move enough to put a hand on her back. He slid it up, somehow, under her hair and rubbed just for a moment before he couldn't anymore. He wanted to move just a little further to touch the skin on her neck, but his triceps were already mad. 

"Dammit, they're here," Salia muttered. 

"Should I…?" He raised his hand off of her. 

She shrugged and threw him a pained look in response. "I like it, but," she explained with the short time they had before the friends came over. She looked back at him with a sad smile and put her hand on his knee under the table for a moment. 

  
  


There had only been a brief moment of awkwardness when Aeshi, Baraga and Sola joined. Baraga had had a glint in his eye and a huge grin on his face. Sola had shot Baraga a hard look when he seemed like he had been planning to make a snide comment about it. 

So Baraga had broken the ice with, "Well, we missed you guys last night." 

"Nice of you," Kanan had said evenly. 

And, with that, enough of the awkwardness had been diffused that Salia was able to relax a little and enjoy her friends. 

They talked about their day and the work, their plans for the weekend, and complained about the discomforts of being away from school or away from home. Kanan was quiet, Salia noticed, but not grumpy. He had nodded with understanding at many of the things they had shared that they were missing. He had volunteered limited information about his exhausting day. He had perked up a little at the idea of a morning hike. 

Salia, finishing a drink, moved her idle hand into her lap and then slowly on to his knee and was happy to feel his hand on hers a moment later. 

Somehow, as was often the case with Baraga, they ended up listening to and enjoying stories of Baraga's many injuries growing up. He had been rather careless on his family farm and had also had very bad luck. But the stories were raucous, well rehearsed, and hilarious. 

Aeshi even regaled them with stories about their home and family. They asked Kanan if he'd been to Pantora. He shook his head. "Not yet." Aeshi was rarely concise unless giving a speech, but seemed to Salia that Kanan was actually enjoying Aeshi's meandering description of the tall buildings and upper class lifestyle in the Pantoran capitol. 

"Where  _ have _ you been, Kanan?" Baraga asked when there was a lull in the conversation. 

Salia felt him tense next to her. 

"I don't think I could give you an exhaustive list," he said, shifting slightly in his seat. There was not a lot of room for shifting, though, as the booth was quite full. 

"How about a favorite place?" Sola prodded. 

Kanan smiled at that question. "My favorite place is usually wherever I am," he answered. 

"So, here?" Aeshi asked, as Baraga interjected,"Rori, really?"

Kanan nodded. "It's just a policy of mine. Not to look back too much." 

"That's smart," Sola said quietly--maybe to herself, maybe to the other two on either side of her. 

Salia smiled and looked to Kanan. He peeked over to her with a crooked smile and squeezed her hand under the table and then removed it to take a swig of his drink. 

"What about you, Salia?" Kanan asked, a flirtatious look in his eye. 

Salia feigned shock and offense. "How am I supposed to follow  _ your  _ answer?" she demanded. She couldn't help smiling. 

"Is it Kiffu?" asked Kanan. 

Salia bit her lip for a second. She really wasn't sure. But she also wasn't very well traveled. "Probably," she answered earnestly. 

There was a pause while Salia and Kanan looked at each other. Then they looked to the rest of them. "Don't ask me!" Baraga demanded. "It's the here and now!" Baraga threw down the last of his drink and addressed the entire group. "Should we go dance?"

Salia watched as Sola excitedly agreed. She noticed that Aeshi listened to the song for a moment before assenting. 

"What about you two?" Baraga asked as he slid out from the booth. He had that look in his eye. 

Kanan waved him off. "I can barely move," he explained. They looked to Salia now. 

She did want to dance, but she also wanted to stay with Kanan. Her eyes met Kanan's 

"I'll be fine," said Kanan assuringly. He wasn't exactly smiling but there was approval on his face. 

Salia smiled as she started to stand up. "Some other night, you're coming too," she promised. 

"Yeah, we'll see," Kanan replied smiling now. 

Salia turned and danced with her friends and even saw and greeted some acquaintances, not that she had very many but their school was small enough that she at least sort of knew a lot of the students. 

She'd had enough to drink that she wasn't very worried about people watching her dance, but she was not so drunk that she was confident. It was more a comfortable solitude and acceptance of self expression. The dancers were unified only in expressing themselves in a group. They weren’t a group, but physically together. 

Salia stayed with the dancers long enough to feel many bumps and brushes and emotions. She bumped Aeshi accidentally and felt their anxiety and insecurity. That wasn't news to Salia, but those weren’t obvious in Aeshi’s demeanor. When she began to sweat and a song that was too slow for unpaired dancing played, she escaped back to Kanan who looked as he had when she'd found him there; eyes shut and maybe asleep. 

She slid in next to him again, but he didn't stir right away. The night was winding down and there was easy space for the waiter droid to come ask if Salia wanted anything else, last call. 

"Two shots of Gatalenta tequila, please," she requested. This drink was more expensive than the ale, but she thought Kanan would enjoy it, if only for the novelty. 

It took a few minutes for the drinks to arrive and Kanan, poor sleepy Kanan, still didn't move. Salia took both shot glasses and scooted in closer to Kanan now. Her skin touched his shirt, as it often did, and Salia felt strong fear. She moved away, troubled, and put the drinks down. 

"Kanan?" she asked, gently touched his arm. He moved but only barely. Salia noticed the curve of his neck as his head rested on the back of the seat. She noticed, too, his lips, slightly parted. "Kanan?" she tried again, shoved his arm a little now. 

That woke him. His eyes opened and he moved to look over to her, then winced, regretting how much he had moved his torso. "Was I sleeping?" he asked, reaching up to rub the back of his neck, but letting his arm fall back down before it could meet its destination. 

"I'm afraid so," Salia said. "They came around for last call and I got you this. Have you ever had it?" She handed him one of the shots. 

He looked down his nose at it, frowning with focus. He sniffed it and then threw his head back, sending it down. His eyes lit up. "Wow," he said, his voice thin. He turned his head over to Salia smiling incredulously. "What  _ was  _ that?" 

Salia chuckled. "It's good, right?" she asked, throwing down her own and grimacing appreciatively. The warm and spicy drink lit her up inside. She told him, "Gatalenta tequila. It's a treat." Their eyes met and they smiled at each other for a moment. 

"I think I should go to bed," Kanan broke the brief silence. 

Salia's smile grew. "You're probably right," she nodded. 

"If I can even stand up…" He put his hands on the table to brace himself, but didn't really manage to move at all beyond that. 

Salia tried not to chuckle, but was also feeling deep sympathy for the pain he was in, and the fear she had sensed. 

He grunted and tried to stand. He managed to lift himself off the seat for a second, but fell back down again. 

"Would you like some help?" Salia asked, stifling laughter now. 

"What? You think this is funny?" Kanan shot a sidelong glance at her, a smile playing on his lips. 

Salia tried to sound dignified as she choked out "no" between swallowed chuckles. 

"Are you sure? It seems like you're enjoying this." He groaned again as he tried to stand up and Salia couldn't hold it in anymore. She laughed and began to move out of the booth, out of his way. 

Kanan scooted across the bench, now playing up the discomfort with guttural moans with each movement. Salia couldn't stop laughing and covered her mouth to try to hide it. When he made it to the edge, he swiveled his legs out and offered his elbow to Salia who took it and helped hoist him up into a stand. He wobbled for a minute and then said, "I wonder if Baraga might be better for this." 

"Baraga won't tuck you in and give you a goodnight kiss," Salia heard herself tease. 

Kanan looked like he was a little red under his swarthy skin. He half nodded and let a crooked smile fill his face. "He would if I asked him, but I'd rather it be you," he explained. 

Salia, pleased, felt herself flushing too. She looked away for a minute and then steeled herself to help bear his weight. 

"I won't need a lot of help," Kanan began. "I'm just really stiff." 

"Well, lean on me as much as you need to," Salia responded. 

They made their way to the bar where they cleared their tabs and then headed out into the night. Kanan was leaning on Salia heavily, but less than before. 

"Hold on," he said, stepping to the wall where he braced himself and stretched his legs, calves first, then hamstrings, then quads. He twisted his torso around a few times. Salia, who had been watching, was starting to feel a little embarrassed. His shorts had hiked up higher than usual, exposing some interesting muscle tone on his legs and Salia was now enjoying the way she could see his strong back through his shirt. She looked away, more to hide her enjoyment than to give him privacy. 

"Better," Kanan said, swinging his arms around now. "But I would still like the escort." Salia looked over her shoulder at him and was nearly undone by the smirk he was giving her. 

She had promised him a kiss and he seemed determined to have it. 

"Don't want you falling over," Salia responded, tone flat. She was feeling very nervous. She offered her arm, which he took. 

"Definitely not," he agreed. 

They walked slowly together, quietly for a minute until Kanan cleared his throat. "l thought the hike idea sounded nice," he ventured. 

Salia nodded. "It does," she agreed. "Maybe the day after tomorrow to give your body a rest?" 

"That's probably wise," Kanan conceded. "Will I see you tomorrow?" His voice was low and gentle. 

Salia smiled down at the ground. "Would you like to?" she looked over to him. 

"Salia," Kanan began, teasing. "I think you’re being coy with me." He put his free hand on hers and smiled warmly at her. 

"You don't have a comlink, do you?" Salia asked, raising an eyebrow. 

Kanan chuckled. "No, I don't," he confessed. 

"Let's go get you one tomorrow," Salia said. "That way we don't have to have things always set up for the next time." 

"Okay," Kanan agreed. 

Salia thought for a moment. "It's kind of like what you were saying. About your favorite place. We can just be where we are. With the comlinks, I mean." 

"Oh yeah, you're right." 

Salia felt him rub her fingers. She looked over to see his starlit profile, his shapely lips. She shied away, the nervous feeling returning. 

They walked in silence to his room. "So, how do you want this to go?" Kanan asked, sitting down on the bed, exhausted, but with a glint of excitement in his eyes. 

Salia raised a single eyebrow. "What do you think is happening here?" Her arms were folded. 

Kanan chuckled. "I thought you were gonna tuck me in," he said, a hint defensively. 

"Well, shouldn't you get ready for bed, then?" 

Kanan laughed and held out his hands to her. She couldn't help a smile spreading across her lips, but it was with some embarrassment that she took his hands. He pulled her towards him and tilted his face towards her. 

Salia smiled down at him and pulled her hands away from his, placing them gently on either side of his face. She felt his hands on her sides, sliding around onto the small of her back. She watched him shut his eyes and pucker his lips. 

Salia smirked and pressed her lips to his forehead and then pulled away to see the look on his face. 

His mouth was hanging open in surprise at being jilted, but there was pleasure there, too. 

Salia laughed. "Goodnight, Kanan," she cooed, prying herself away from his hands and heading for the door. Yes, she could connect quickly--she only had the summer for this to even happen before they’d go their separate ways, but a first kiss tonight seemed like it would be too fast, even under duress. 

A little dejected, Kanan sighed. Their eyes met. He seemed a little sad, but he pushed a small smile on his lips. "Goodnight, Salia," he offered. 

Salia started to slip out the door. 

"Oh wait!" Kanan jumped up, grimacing as his body protested. He moved close to her again, but didn't touch her. "What time tomorrow?" 

"How about we meet down there at noon?" Salia suggested. 

Kanan smiled, gazing at her without reacting for a little too long. "Sounds good," he finally said, snapping out of whatever trance he'd been in. 

"Go to bed," Salia commanded, playfully. 

"Yes ma'am," Kanan said. 

The door closed and Salia went home. 


	7. You Can't Tell?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to pop in and say a quick thank you to you readers. I didn't really expect more than like three people to join in but I'm very happy to have you! If you don't follow me on instagram, I'll tell you here now: this whole fic is finished, I'm updating weekly to make editing a little easier. I have some art of the OCs on my instagram if you're interested. Same username. :)

Kanan woke up, stretched his stiff body, and checked the time. He found he had a few more hours before his date with Salia. Was it a date? It was unclear. 

Always on the move, Kanan rarely had time to himself that couldn't be spent at the bar and he was not sure what to do while he waited. Caleb would've meditated now and then practiced form three as an extension of that meditation, but he was Kanan, not Caleb. What did Kanan do? 

_ Get wasted and pick up a girl _ .

Kanan sat back down on the bed for a moment, stroking his stubbly chin.  _ Probably a shave.  _

They had not agreed on a spot to meet except for “at the market” and Kanan was not sure where to look. He had been caught up in a conversation with Baraga about nuna-ball, a sport Kanan had very passively followed for the last couple of years, and he had left a little later than he’d originally planned. That meant that instead of beating Salia to the market, he was nervously looking around for her, hoping she wasn’t wondering where he could be. 

Kanan turned a corner and saw, in the sunlight, Salia. She was wearing a pale yellow dress, off her shoulders and ending at about her knees. She was gazing across the street at a vendor and hadn’t seen him yet. Kanan was enjoying taking in the view of her skin in the sun when she turned and looked right at him. She smiled when she recognized him and Kanan was momentarily stunned. Then she was coming towards him and he realized he should probably do something. 

“Hi,” he heard her say. She squinted and held her hand up over her eyes to look up at him. 

Kanan’s smile filled his face. “Hello,” he greeted, his voice low. 

“They’re back,” Salia said, gesturing over behind her. Kanan followed her motion and saw two stormtroopers standing on the corner. 

“Hm,” Kanan nodded. “I guess we can talk about that later.” 

“Good idea,” Salia agreed. She flashed him a grin and moved to stand next to him, taking his arm in hers. She was quiet for a moment as they started walking down the street. “How are you?” she asked. 

“What? You can’t tell?” Kanan teased with a grin. 

“Not this time,” she informed him. 

Kanan frowned, eyebrows raised, an expression of surprised acceptance. “I’m alright,” he said finally. “Not much to report. I had a talk with Baraga today and I don’t know if he’s a genius or incredibly stupid.” 

Salia barked a laugh. “What do you mean?” she pressed. 

“Well, he was telling me about his sports-gambling strategies. I just can’t believe the man has won so much money.” 

“Oh, that?” Salia spoke, shaking her head. “That’s always confused me too. But I’d always thought he was just lucky.” 

Kanan shrugged. “He seems to have a strong intuition at least,” Kanan observed. “How are you?” he asked finally, realizing he probably should’ve done it earlier. 

“Oh,” Salia uttered. “I’m okay.” 

“I like your dress,” he complimented. 

“Oh, really?” She sounded like she didn’t believe him, but was smiling and looking down at it. 

“Yeah, it’s nice,” Kanan explained, without elaboration. 

“Hm.” Salia seemed doubtful. “Well, thank you.” 

_ You could wear anything and I would like it.  _ He’d used the line before on other girls. He’d even used the “nothing” variant successfully once. But it just didn’t feel right here. This slow-burn style wooing was definitely out of his wheelhouse.

The slow-burn wasn’t turning out bad though. He had enjoyed it as a challenge, definitely. And he wasn’t quite ready to admit it out loud, but he was starting to think he liked what was happening and specifically that it was happening with Salia. 

"Did you eat before?" he heard Salia ask distantly. 

Ripped out of contemplation, he stammered mentally for a moment before saying, "No, not yet." 

"Good!" Salia approved, her tone bright. "We can try out this vendor over here… it smells really good." She pulled him around and they were hit by the fragrant smell of grilled meats. They were struck too by the sound of a crowd, waiting for their own meals. 

"Wow," Kanan let out. "Seems pretty popular," he commented. 

"Must be good," Salia agreed with a small smile. She pulled them over to the back of the line, though it was unclear if there really was a line. Maybe if they stood in the back of the crowd, they'd be pushed to the front eventually. 

Kanan could feel his mouth watering now. "What do they have here?" he asked, louder than normal to counteract the sheer volume of the place. 

"What?" Salia shouted back at him. 

Kanan tried again, louder. 

"What??" Salia was smiling now. 

Kanan rolled his eyes, but couldn't hide his own smile. He lowered his head, moved her hair slightly, and put his mouth near her ear. "What do they have here?" he said quietly. He backed away and noticed Salia looked a little flustered. Her smile was enormous as she pushed her hair behind her ear. 

She pointed up to the vendor's sign. It was a local language and Kanan didn't know it. He shrugged to indicate it meant nothing to him. Salia mouthed an "oh" of understanding and then pulled herself close to him. He lowered his head down to give her access to his own ear and couldn't help slipping his hands onto the small of her back. 

"It's grilled nerf." It was not a nice sounding sentence normally, but her voice did something good for it. 

She pulled away, but Kanan didn't take his hands off her back. She smiled and put her hands on his chest. 

_ I want to kiss her, but she didn't want to last night.  _ Kanan's unbidden thought left pretty quickly, but the feeling of uncertainty was there. 

The line, or rather mass, moved and the pair had to physically separate to move up in it. Salia found Kanan's hand and the two shared brief, slightly embarrassed smiles. 

A few minutes later, they had their grilled nerf wraps in hand, complete with a creamy white sauce. They found a quiet place and ate, and food spilled out of the overfilled bread into the small containers they'd come in. Kanan had tried to pay before he'd heard the total, but Salia refused to let him. 

When they finished eating and finished cleaning up their faces, Kanan prodded, "Hey, why didn't you let me pay back there?" 

Salia frowned playfully at him for a moment. "I wouldn't make you pay for a lunch you didn't suggest," she explained, earnestly.

"Well, thank you," Kanan returned quietly. 

"You're welcome, Kanan," Salia said and then added, with a glint in her eye, "You will have to get your own comlink." 

Kanan smiled a crooked smile. "Even though you want me to get one?" He folded his arms across his chest but couldn't look too tough with his smile. 

Salia chuckled. "Yeah, sorry," she started with a shrug. "It's not me, it's society. You need a comlink in this day and age." She had started walking, but stopped and turned to make sure he was coming. "It's not great, but it's how it is." 

Kanan let his arms flop down to his sides dramatically and huffed a sigh. "I guess you're right." He walked up to her, affecting an air of begrudging. When he was at her side, he heard her laugh and felt her arm wrap around his. He stood up straight and chuckled at himself. 

There were a couple of tech vendors. They had found the used tech stall and were being shown all the old datapads and comlinks available. If they'd been at the vendor with the new stuff, Kanan could've done an expensive datapad comlink combo, but as it was, one or the other was going to have to work. 

"What do you think?" Salia asked after the grisled human man who had left the bin of old gadgets with them for a minute to tend to someone else. 

Kanan raised his eyebrows and huffed out a sigh. He was holding a dirty datapad in his hand which he looked at passively. He shrugged finally. "I used to have a comlink," he began. "I've never had a datapad of my own." Salia nodded and Kanan picked up another datapad but dropped it back down with a clatter almost immediately. "What do you like?" he asked her. 

Salia shrugged. "I told you you needed a comlink," she said. It was a non answer and she could hear it in her own tone. 

Kanan dug around for a comlink he hadn't already seen. "What will I need it for?" he questioned. 

Salia smiled and observed the other gadgets on the table. "Well, mainly organizing rendezvous with me," she answered, a glint in her eye. "And maybe the occasional late night talk." Her voice was quiet and silky. She looked up at him and flashed him a flirtatious smile. His eyes were a little big, probably more at her tone than at her words. 

"I wouldn't get to hear your voice with a datapad," Kanan observed, looking down at one. 

"No, though inhibitions are a lot lower with messages," she explained clinically. 

Kanan looked over, suddenly much more interested in the datapad he was holding. 

"You should get the comlink," Salia encouraged, realizing what she had done. 

Kanan smiled down at her, raising his eyebrow. "What if I want to know what no inhibitions Salia would tell me late at night?" he teased. 

Salia felt that her face was hot. "The comlink is cheaper," she began, then seeing that she had not sold him on it, she thought fast. "You can find out what I'd say and hear it from me, even without the datapad." 

She felt his hand on her opposite hip, pulling her into him in a sudden motion. "Ah, yes, my good man, how much for the comlink?" 

They wandered around, a little aimless for a while. It wasn’t quite evening, but it was definitely late in the afternoon, but the time had passed quickly. Kanan was afraid to bring up what they should do in case Salia decided she had somewhere to be, but eventually, on the outskirts of town, but near their dorms, she asked, “What do you think, Kanan?” 

“What do I think about what?” he asked back. 

Salia shrugged. “I don’t know, do you have any ideas about what to do?” 

Kanan stopped and rubbed his chin for a moment. He could think of things he wanted to do, certainly, but he wasn’t sure what she wanted. Especially after the not-kiss the night before. He focused on Salia who was looking around the alley a little absently. She turned to him, their eyes met and Kanan was surprised by what he said next. 

“I want to kiss you.” 

Salia was surprised too. 

“Why didn’t you kiss me last night?” he asked, as gently as he could. He realized as he said it though that there was hurt in his voice. He’d been ignoring his own disappointment and, now, here it was, out in the open. He felt her gingerly take his hands. 

“I’m sorry, Kanan,” she offered quietly, stepping in closer to him now. “I was nervous.” 

Kanan met her eyes at that, disbelieving now. “Nervous?” he nearly laughed. “Why?”

Salia smiled. “I don’t know,” she confided, embarrassed. “This seems fast and I haven’t done a whole lot of kissing…” she trailed off, turning her head. 

Kanan reached up a hand, placed it gently on her cheek and guided her face back to his. “I really haven’t either,” he intimated, a crooked smile growing on his lips. 

“But I thought you were one of… you know…” She seemed a little flustered and very unwilling to continue that sentence. 

Kanan felt hot in the face for a second. “Yeah, I mean, that doesn’t  _ always _ involve kissing.” 

Salia laughed a little and met his eyes again. And then Kanan noticed that she wasn’t looking at his eyes anymore. 

He turned his attention now to her lips, slightly parted, but also the smallest of upturns there at the corners. His heart demanded his attention for a moment as it drummed loudly inside of him. He was feeling nervous now, too, it seemed. He started to move in, hoping to meet lips with lips, when a door opened loudly near them. 

Kanan and Salia moved away from each other, shocked by the sound and even more shocked by who was exiting that dorm. 

Olan Prine was glaring down at his shoes, grumbling about the mud. He looked up and jumped about a meter when he realized they were there. “What in the blazes--” he exclaimed, clutching at his heart. He straightened up and reclaimed his poise. “What are  _ you two _ doing here?” he questioned, voice dripping with disgust. 

“Does it matter?” Kanan snarled.

Olan Prine rolled his eyes and turned to leave, shouting back, “I don’t have time for you!” His voice bounced around against the walls. 

Kanan rolled his eyes now and turned back to Salia, putting his hands on her sides. Salia watched Prine intently until he turned a corner and disappeared. Then she finally looked up to Kanan and unfolded her arms, placing her hands on Kanan’s arms. 

“Now, where were we?” Kanan asked with a smirk. 

Salia breathed out a laugh and put her forehead on his. Her hands slid up his arms and shoulders until they landed on his neck. Kanan couldn’t and didn’t want to ignore the trail of tingles she'd left on him. Salia’s eyes were already closed, Kanan observed, though it was hard to tell when she was a blur in front of him. 

Kanan pulled her in a little tighter, closed his own eyes and tilted his face. Their lips met, Kanan heard and felt a small giggle from Salia, and then he melted into her, if only for a moment. 

  
  


Dazed, Salia smiled up at Kanan, giggles escaping her tingling lips before she could stop them. Their foreheads touched again and this time, Kanan joined in chuckling softly. 

"How'd I do?" Salia inquired, half joking, half hoping he hadn't been disappointed. 

Kanan laughed. "Salia," he growled ruefully. "You don't need to do much to be a good kisser. Your lips are…" He bent back in for another kiss, this time a brief taste as Salia's new laugh broke forth. 

"What about  _ me _ ?" Kanan asked, puffing out his chest a little and laughing at himself. 

Salia was so giddy, she couldn't get any words out. Instead, she grabbed his face and pulled it down to her, planting kisses and laughs on his cheeks, nose, and mouth. 

Their eyes met and it was clear he was waiting for an answer. 

"Kanan!" Salia laughed and then felt his hand on her neck. That stirred her, but in a way that banished the giggles. She was enraptured now, looking intently into his face. 

"Well, now that I have your attention," Kanan began, a pleased grin growing on his face. His thumb brushed across her lips. "What did you think?" He seemed very in control, but also vulnerable. 

Salia paused for a moment, waiting for her brain to catch up with everything else. Finally, it came to her. "I've never been kissed like that," she confided. "I get it now."

"Get what?"

"Why people like it so much." 

Kanan's pleased expression had reached every corner of his face. She felt the tickle of his thumb over her lips again. Then he traced her qukuuf along her cheekbones. She shut her eyes, trying to focus on his touch. 

"You know, it's just occurred to me that I don't know anything about these," Kanan commented. 

"About what?" Salia replied dreamily, her eyes fluttering open. "Oh. My qukuuf?" 

"Yeah, I guess so." 

"Family. Lineage." 

"When do you get them?" 

"As a baby. Just a few days after the birth." Salia couldn't be bothered to focus on this and started gently kissing any spot of skin she could reach. His neck was smooth and smelled like a forest. She felt Kanan's throaty laugh. 

"Doesn't it hurt?" Kanan asked. 

Salia shrugged, "I guess it must." 

The sound of stormtroopers talking through vocoders came near, almost out of nowhere. Kanan held Salia close and watched them out of the corner of his eye. Salia glared at them once they were in view. 

"They're not interested in us," Kanan explained to Salia. 

Salia squinted at them anyway. "Maybe we should find somewhere to be alone without interruption," she suggested. 

"Where--" 

Salia whipped out her comlink and adjusted it briefly. "Sola? Sola, are you there?" 

After a moment, a voice came through from the other side. "Hey, what's up?" 

"Are you with Baraga?" Salia asked. 

"Yeah, why?" 

"Where are you?" 

"Getting dinner in town, why?" 

"No reason, thanks, Sola." 

Kanan was watching her intently. "What do you have in mind, Salia?" he asked, a hint of apprehension in his voice. 

"I have something I need to tell you. Privately." 

They walked with purpose to her room. Kanan hadn't been there before and, while, yes, it was technically the same as his room, it seemed much nicer somehow. Kanan stood awkwardly inside the door, not sure where to sit as Salia took off her shoes.  _ Should I take off my shoes?  _

Salia strode over to a cabinet that he didn't have in his room and asked, "Do you want a drink?" 

"Oh, sure," Kanan replied. He decided to just sit on the bed he was nearest, the one closest to the door. Salia didn't tell him he was wrong when he did. Instead she handed him a bottle of something and turned to the other side of the room, going to get something. A chair that Kanan hadn't seen. She pulled it over and set it in front of Kanan, then sat.

They opened their bottles and took swigs. Salia took a lot longer to finish her taste and, when she was done, the drink was nearly half gone. She puffed out a breath of satisfaction, or maybe anxiety and then looked up at Kanan. 

"You asked me about my qukuuf," she stated. 

Kanan wasn't sure that she wanted a response, but said, "Yes." 

"And I told you they're about family."

Kanan looked around nervously for a moment. "Yes," he confirmed. 

"Has anyone told you about Trigo?" She sounded more like her normal self now, less like she was trying to be tough. 

"No, Baraga mentioned it, but I told him I wanted to hear it from you, on your terms," Kanan explained. 

Salia nodded, thinking for a moment. "Do you remember what he said exactly?" 

"Uh… I think he just asked me if you'd told me about it." 

Salia sighed and hung her head. "Not it, he," she began. "Trigo's my brother." Kanan felt deep sadness now, sympathetically. Or maybe through the Force?  _ That's weird _ . "They took him."

"Who? Oh--"

Then both said together, one with realization and one with resignation, "The Empire." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, their lunch... it was gyros.


	8. What It's Like to Lose Family

Salia explained carefully. Trigo, her brother, had done something (Salia didn’t say and Kanan didn’t press) and the Imperials in the area arrested him. It had been pretty public and the whole thing had been hard to deal with over the last year. Everyone else seemed to think Trigo was probably dead, but even if he wasn’t, he might as well be. Baraga, who’d been close to Trigo, apparently, was the only other person who still used the present tense in the rare occasions that Trigo did come up. 

There had been a few rumors floating around about him, but it was unclear what was worth pursuing. Salia had had a hunch that someone had let the Imperials in on Trigo’s plan, but she had no evidence as to who it could’ve been, just gut feelings. She wasn’t sure it would even help to figure out who. 

“I also think he’s here, on Rori,” she said quietly, looking down at her palms. 

“Why do you think that?” Kanan hoped he sounded supportive, but wasn’t sure it had fully come across. He reached over and took her hand, though the gap was physically difficult to bridge. Salia smiled sadly up at him and then stood and took a seat next to him on her bed. 

She sighed. “It’s mostly hearsay,” she began, almost dismissively. “This is apparently where they keep their low risk captives from the system. As far as I can tell, there’s a detention center somewhere west of here. They have a farm.” She sniffled slightly. Kanan wrapped his arm around her and wasn’t surprised when she curled into him, putting her head on his opposite shoulder. He cradled her in his other arm and let her cry quietly. 

Kanan had confirmed that it was the Force leading him to feel her sorrow; it was too strong to be his own empathy, which was a bit deficient after years of liquor and solitude. He rubbed her back until she straightened up sometime later. She covered her face and pointed to his shoulder. 

“Oh, no, I’m sorry.” 

“What?” Kanan tried to look down, contorting his body, but realized it must’ve just been damp from her tears. He turned his attention back to Salia. “No, no, it’s okay,” he assured her. He reached up, touched her wet cheek and tried to dry her tears away. She laughed at herself feebly. Kanan carefully placed a kiss on her forehead. “ _ I’m _ sorry,” he finally said. 

“Sorry for what?” she asked. 

Kanan shrugged. “Sorry you’ve had to deal with this. Sorry that you’ve had to deal with it more or less alone,” he explained. 

Salia nodded. “People were good about it at first. They would give me space, or bring me food, or let me cry with them.” Salia shook her head. “Then I only had my parents and Baraga. But my parents wanted to ignore it, too, pretty soon. They think he’s dead, or at least treat him like he is.” 

Kanan rubbed her cheek again, bringing her back to the here and now. “What can I do?” he asked as gently as he could. 

Salia smiled and shook her head. “I don’t know,” she began. “You’re already doing it?” 

Kanan nodded, unsure of what to understand from that. 

“I wanted to tell you because it’s nearly always on my mind. And if we’re going to do this… me you thing… you’d probably be better off knowing that, for example, when I see stormtroopers, it’s more than just a fear of authority. It’s the memories of watching him…” She couldn’t finish her sentence as she bit back tears, but two pooled and fell down her cheeks anyway. Kanan hugged her close. 

Kanan opted not to try to distract her or take care of her, though that felt like a natural course. No, what the Jedi taught him to do about this kind of loss and sadness he still remembered because he’d needed to use it nearly every day before he’d gotten back on his feet with Kasmiri’s help. It had limited success, but it had been better, he thought, to experience the feeling and just let it go. 

It occurred to Kanan that Salia was probably better at this than most. She experienced so many emotions throughout the day from her psychometry, but they seemed not to affect her strongly, or at least not over a long period of time. 

But what are you supposed to do when you want to hold on to hope? What do you do when the hope repeatedly hurts you, but it would hurt more to give it up? Master Billaba would’ve had something to say to that, but Caleb hadn’t thought up the question in time to ask it. 

“I know what it’s like to lose family,” he heard himself tell her. His voice was soft and warm, even to his own ears a comfort. He’d never really given his master or fellow padawan learners and Jedi the name of “family,” but doing it now felt right, even considering his complicated feelings about the Order. 

Salia waited for a moment more before saying, “It’s just awful, isn’t it?” 

Kanan smiled ruefully. “Yes, it is,” he confided. “You told me you felt sadness from me when we first met,” he continued. He felt her nod. “It’s them. I’ve been alone for so long and I miss them.” Bells were going off in his head, warning him of the dangers of attachment, both the past attachment and desire for future attachment. But he did not regret the feeling of love or the feeling of loss that he had for his master. How could he really turn down the opportunity to become attached to someone. Someone like the girl he’d been holding and supporting. Couldn’t they be that for each other?

“Well, I guess it’s good we found each other,” Salia said, a note of hope in her voice. 

Kanan rubbed her back and smiled. “Yeah, I think we got lucky.” 

Salia brought her face up to look at him and then kissed him fervently. Kanan didn’t need any extra help from the Force to understand that she had been vulnerable with him and was relieved that he had responded well. They seemed to have increased emotional intimacy and support. Kanan himself felt lighter knowing that he had been able to confess some of his past to her and that it had been enough. 

_ Maybe someday I could tell her more,  _ he thought. 

Salia, Sola and Aeshi were waiting in front of their dorm building, dressed for exercise. By some miracle, the air was not nearly so thick as it often was and it felt pleasant, even if it was still hot. The boys were supposed to be meeting them there before heading off on a swampy hike through the wilderness on one side of town. Maybe they’d make it far enough to reach the rock formations Salia had seen off in the distance, but never approached. There was no way to know how far they were, really, given there were nearly no trees or plants other than the reedy grass. 

“What have you two been up to?” Aeshi had asked. Both Sola and Salia had been spending a lot of time with Baraga and Kanan that they’d seen very little of Aeshi. Last year, here on Rori, something similar had happened and it had been the reason for the friends night tradition. Last year, though, it had been Aeshi and Salia together whenever Salia could handle being with anyone else. Sola and their recently graduated friend Darial had been the ones who were constantly away. Salia was honestly a little surprised now to be the one that needed the friends night to take a break. 

“What about you, Aeshi?” Sola asked after Salia and Sola both gave Aeshi as much information as they could stand. 

They shrugged and sighed. “Oh, you know. Been practising melodium a lot though my roommate does  _ not _ like it,” Aeshi raised their brows and then smiled, taking some joy in being a bit of a nuisance. 

They talked for a bit about Aeshi’s roommate, but soon they heard Baraga’s heavy footsteps. “Hello!” he called over. “It seems like a good morning for a hike, what do you say?” 

“Let’s get to it!” Sola chimed back. 

“Good morning,” Kanan greeted Salia more quietly, falling into step next to her. They were in the back of the group which meant Salia could sneak a kiss onto his cheek before they got too far into things. She felt warm inside as she watched Kanan’s smile grow in response. 

“Just so you all know,” Aeshi began loudly from the middle of the group. “I did not come on this hike to be left out of the conversation for hours.” They said it with a laugh, but it was true all the same. 

“I promise, you will not be left out, Aeshi,” Baraga said from the front. “So, care to tell us all about political game theory and what it means for the Naboo system under the Empire?” 

Aeshi opened their mouth to begin, but noticed Baraga snickering. “Hey,” they said. “It  _ is _ actually an interesting question!” 

A few hours later, they’d stopped in an unusually dry spot on the top of a low ridge to have lunch before they planned to turn back to head home. Salia, Sola and Aeshi had prepared a spread of meats, cheeses, crackers, bread and fruit. They’d told the boys to bring a couple of drinks, but they were definitely not contributing equally with two bottles of mild, not very cold wine that they’d grabbed on the walk over. Baraga had volunteered to carry them, too, so Kanan was feeling very undeserving of the small feast, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he enjoyed the picnic lunch with everyone else as best he could. 

They were all a little sweaty, but the weather was unusually good; at least as far as Kanan had observed, it was unusual. 

“I’m always surprised by how open it is out here,” Aeshi commented when their eating had slowed. They looked up at the sky, cloudless and pale blue. 

“I guess Pantora is probably not like this,” Kanan said. 

They shook their head. “Yeah, no. Even if the buildings didn’t make it feel small, the jungle would,” they explained. “There’s no place there where you can get a view like this.” 

“Big sky,” Baraga spoke up, between bites. Everyone watched him for a moment, waiting for more. “That’s what they call it here and on Naboo.” 

Kanan thought back for a moment, trying to remember if there were places he’d been where he’d noticed the “big sky.” He hadn’t been paying attention very closely in the last couple of years to those kinds of things. 

The sounds of bugs and rustling were pierced through by the sound of something… a speeder? No, too small? A transport? Kanan looked around to find the noise and was stunned. A TIE fighter was quickly approaching, low in the atmosphere. Kanan had no reason to believe the TIE was there for him, but he was on high alert anyway. He felt Salia’s hand touch his arm. All he could think to do was to place his own hand on hers, unable to take his eyes away from the now very large TIE. 

The very large TIE that zipped right on by and continued on its way, the horrible shriek fading slowly. 

Kanan let something like a sigh out through his nose and then looked around to the others. All of them looked nervous, except Salia. She was standing up, trying to get a good look at where the ship had been headed. 

“Salia, you’re not thinking…” Sola began cautiously. 

Kanan could tell that everyone was thinking of the same name, but no one dared speak it. At least not loudly. “Trigo,” breathed Baraga. Kanan looked over to see him watching now too, standing to see if he could somehow peer over the horizon. 

Salia and Baraga looked at each other, faces respectively hopeful and concerned. 

“I told you they had a camp out there,” Salia reminded Baraga with a fire that Kanan was not familiar with. 

“Yeah, but how do we know he’s even there?” Baraga asked, voice thin.  _ Maybe with emotion? _

Salia shrugged. “I guess we don’t.” She flopped back down onto the ground, began eating what remained of the fruit quickly, sneaking glances up in the direction of the TIE’s flight path, directly west as far Kanan could tell. 

“Hey, I mean,” Baraga knelt down across from Salia, trying to get a good look at her face. “Just because we don’t know doesn’t mean he isn’t there.” 

Salia nodded. “How can we find out?” she asked. 

Aeshi, Kanan noticed, shrank back and seemed to be trying not to listen. 

Baraga shrugged now. “We can look into it,” he promised. 

Sola looked between the two. “Maybe we can cozy up to an Imperial officer in town?” she suggested. “See if we can get ‘em a little too drunk to not let us in on the secret?” 

Salia frowned. “You’d have to do it without me,” she said pointing to her tattoos-- _ qukuuf,  _ Kanan remembered. 

“Baraga and I are good candidates for that, anyway,” Sola said. “You know how Baraga gets with professors when he’s in trouble.” 

“How’s that?” Kanan asked, a smirk playing on his face. 

“Shmoozy,” Baraga explained, laying it on thick. 

“I think you’re all forgetting,” Aeshi began, “That you’re talking about  _ the Empire _ here.” 

“We’ve all seen what they can do, it’s true,” Sola interjected, coolly. “This is pretty low-level stuff we’re talking about though.”

“What do you mean ‘low-level’?” Aeshi asked, folding their arms. 

Sola didn’t speak for a beat, so Kanan cut in. “The location of a single unimportant prisoner isn’t something anyone would get into trouble for revealing, so nobody would punish the fools who asked.” 

“Especially if they can’t remember who asked,” Sola added, a smile spreading across her face. 

“Well, I mean, I’m hardly forgettable,” Baraga began with a playful grin. 

“Yeah, but when you turn on the shmooze, they  _ want  _ to forget you,” Sola retorted.

“This seems crazy, is it crazy?” Salia asked Kanan after they’d hung back from the others for a moment. They were near the town now and reality was starting to creep back in. Salia had been very quiet.

Kanan guessed that she meant the half-baked plan to learn more about Trigo. “It’s a little crazy,” Kanan admitted. “It’d be crazy to do it soon without more planning. And without a clear target. And--” 

“It’s crazy!” Salia let out quietly, her eyebrows raised high on her face with apprehension. She clutched Kanan’s arm to her body. 

“What are you worried about?” Kanan asked. 

Salia grasped for words for a moment. “They’ll know who we are and what we’re trying to do and we’ll get in trouble for it. Or Trigo will get in trouble for it…” Her wide, worried eyes scanned the ground. 

“I think if we can get some more basic information and make a better plan, it shouldn’t be too dangerous,” Kanan tried to explain, but Salia still seemed tense. “You can always put a stop to it. I think, since he’s your brother, you probably have that right.” 

Salia gave him a sidelong glance and then looked over to the broad man. “Maybe you should ask  _ Baraga _ about Trigo,” she said quietly, head hanging down again. 

Kanan wrapped his arm around Salia while they walked. He rubbed her arm and tried to get a look at her face. 

_ Poor Salia,  _ he thought. He’d known this kind of fear himself. A belief that of course you would act, when the time came, clashing with the reality that it’s absolutely paralyzing to act in the face of danger. Kanan was reminded of Master Luminara’s terrifying lesson, both in that he had been terrified to ask a question and that she had explained that attachment to comfort or an idea could prevent understanding. He wasn’t sure why that lesson, of all the Jedi Code lessons, had been so memorable. Maybe it was that paralyzing fear he had felt, because he wasn’t sure now if the lesson was right. 

“Can I take you out to dinner tonight?” Kanan asked quietly. “After I shower?” 

Salia perked up a little and looked over to Kanan, her worried expression slowly melting into a hopeful one. “Yeah, that sounds nice,” she agreed. 

Kanan placed a kiss on top of her head as carefully as he could considering they were walking and they caught up to the others. 

Holding hands across the table, Kanan and Salia sat having just eaten their dinner. They still needed to pay before they could leave and sit closer together. Salia seemed to have been more her normal self during the dinner. She had even been bubbly compared to normal. Kanan hoped she’d been excited about a more formal date. 

He rubbed her fingers and listened to her talk about a concept from a sociology class. Kanan was having a little trouble following, but gathered that the way the holonets reported their news said a lot about society as a whole. Kanan wasn’t sure what, he didn’t follow the holos and he didn’t know much about society apart from Jedi and scoundrels anyway. 

“You know, I used to be pretty okay with the current administration,” began Salia, on a new note. 

“Really?” Kanan asked, dubiously. He’d already looked around to see if anyone obviously imperial was around to overhear them when Salia had started talking about sociology; no one had been an obvious threat. Kanan couldn’t help feeling a little nervous anyway. 

Salia nodded, sipping her drink. “My parents even wanted me to go to an Imperial Academy,” she commented. 

Kanan was absolutely astounded by that and couldn’t think of anything to say. 

“I am not cut out for the military, even in a supporting role, but it is steady work in a growing field,” Salia explained. 

Kanan nodded with new understanding. “I guess they’re probably not happy with the choice you made?” he ventured. 

Salia laughed. “No, they’re not,” she affirmed. “Trigo and I both came here even though they wanted us to get good jobs. Trigo at least wanted to do law, so that’s better than me.” Salia rolled her eyes and shook her head. She looked up and met his eyes, then sighed and smiled. “I’m glad I can talk to you about him now.” 

Kanan nodded, not sure what to say. If he told her about his Master, would he also be happy to relive the memories? 

“We were always pretty close, but we also fought a lot,” she pressed on. “I didn’t really appreciate him until…” She trailed off. 

Kanan definitely knew this feeling though. “I know what you mean,” he replied. “I was the same way with my family.”  _ Even though we were supposed to be present _ , Kanan thought ruefully. He felt her rubbing his fingers. 

The waiter droid rolled by and dropped a check for them. Kanan pulled his hand away from Salia, fumbled with some credits, and squared away the payment. 

“Well, what now?” Salia asked. 

Kanan couldn’t help a small smile growing on his lips. “Do you think the others are still at the bar?” he asked. 

“Probably, why?” 

Kanan stood up and Salia followed suit. “Well, we have a few options,” he began. She took his arm and they walked out of the restaurant. “We can go find them there.” He hoped she wouldn’t bite on this one. She looked over, eyebrows raised, waiting for the next option. “Or we can go find some place private,” he enticed, uneven smirk in full view now. 

Salia giggled and hugged his arm to her body. “What are your intentions?” she asked, affecting a firm fatherly voice. 

Kanan laughed. “Purely respectful.”

Salia was raising her eyebrows now, impressed. “That’s a very diplomatic answer. I have no idea what it means.” 


	9. Could Sure Get Used to This

The next week seemed both to fly by and drag on forever. The work days were hot and unusually boring; it felt like every day, Kanan was watering all alone. At least it seemed like the horrible watering rig had been fixed or decommissioned; he hadn’t seen it since the first time. Maybe some other poor soul was dragging that thing around endlessly. A couple of times, Kanan managed to coordinate with Salia so they had the same lunch shuttle and break. It had been nice to see her and talk for even just a few minutes in the midst of the monotony of watering. 

They went out for drinks nearly every night, excluding friend’s night, which Baraga and Kanan spent watching nuna-ball in a different corner of the Outpost than they usually occupied (Kanan had thought about asking about Trigo, but didn’t). The drinks with Salia were almost always followed by at least a long goodnight kiss, but sometimes the goodnight kiss became three, then five, then ten. Often, Kanan found himself wanting more, but after his first kiss attempt had gone awry, he wanted to wait for her to make the moves. 

It was demanding a lot of his patience, though. And on this night, he was finding it damn near impossible. 

Kanan pulled his lips away from Salia’s and left a path of kisses on her cheek, down to her neck. He heard Salia giggle, trying to stifle a moan and he nearly growled in response. Her fingers were in his hair now. He slid his hands up from her lower back to her shoulders, trying desperately to pull her in closer to him. He felt her hum in delight. 

He stopped long enough to murmur, “What are we doing?” 

Salia didn’t respond for what felt like a long time. Kanan found her ear and gambled on a nibble. He felt her melt into his arms a little more and was pleased that she hadn’t hated it. 

“What do you mean,” Salia began, breathlessly, “ _What are we doing_?” 

Kanan did growl now as he said, “Think.” He returned his attention to her neck. 

Salia pulled herself away, grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him with not a little heat. Her fingers found their way back into his hair and, Kanan noticed, she pulled out the tie he used for his short ponytail. She ran her fingers through his hair--thankfully it was clean. Kanan hadn't let anybody do this with his hair before, though a few had tried. 

He reached up to put his own fingers in her hair, but was surprised when his fingers couldn't just run along the length of it. He felt Salia giggle before she broke away to say, "It's always tangled." 

Kanan laughed lightly and then wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, out of her hair. "I won't touch it if you don't want me to," he said. 

"Oh, I mean, you can, it's just not gonna be easy like yours," she explained. 

Kanan got distracted and started to kiss her again, and she responded in kind. 

"Oh." He had remembered. "I had you on the hook for a question." He decided to see what the other side of her neck was like, to give her a chance to answer. She did something between a giggle and a moan and he clutched at her lower back. 

She was still fiddling with his hair and Kanan absolutely loved it. 

"What are we doing?" she repeated, as if it required all her focus to do so. "Do you mean 'what are we waiting for'?" 

Kanan murmured an "uh huh" and found the line just under her jaw. 

Salia made him wait now. Or maybe he was distracting her too much. He stopped what he was doing, even though he was enjoying it and pulled away enough to look at her. Dark hair fell around his face. 

Her expression was complicated. Content, embarrassed, excited and unsure. It was dark, but it seemed like she was probably blushing. Kanan put a hand on her cheek and rubbed his finger over her qukuuf; the behavior had become a habit over the last week. She shut her eyes and leaned into his hand. 

"What are _you_ waiting for?" Salia asked, the ghost of a smirk haunting her lips. This was a tactic she employed often, Kanan had recently learned, shooting the tough questions back to him. 

"You," Kanan smiled. 

Salia smiled too. "I've been waiting for _you_ ," she explained. "And I've been waiting for a good time." She looked a little sheepish for a moment. 

"What do you mean?" Kanan asked, raising an eyebrow. 

"Well, there are a few things, like getting a room to ourselves without making it obvious," Salia began. 

"Okay, what else?" 

"Oh, I mean, I'd like to not have work in the morning," Salia added. 

"Makes sense, what else?" Kanan was starting to feel like tonight was the night. 

Salia shifted on her feet a little. She sighed. "I'm not on suppressants, so." Her mouth was a straight line as she shrugged. 

"Oh," Kanan breathed, low and slow. He nodded and added, "I see." The Jedi health class had, really, not taught them a lot about human and nonhuman anatomy especially as it pertained to interacting with other people, but Kanan knew at least a little bit about periods in spite of it all. "So, what does that mean?" Kanan hoped that she wouldn't be upset with him for asking. 

Salia began clinically. "Well, I'm on my period now and it's just… not ideal for a first time," she explained. "We'd also need to figure something out. Maybe I should get suppressants…" She seemed both flustered and in charge of the situation and Kanan thought it was cute. 

Kanan shrugged. "I've got stuff," he nodded back towards his dorm. 

"Of course you do," Salia began with a smirk. He frowned at her. "I mean, that's good," she laughed and nuzzled his neck. 

Kanan waited for her to say more, feeling like the conversation was not done, but she didn't continue. "So, am I still waiting for you, then?" he asked quietly. 

"Just for a little while," she said sadly. 

Kanan rubbed her back. "No rush," he nearly whispered. 

"I want to," Salia began. "I've _wanted_ to. I just want it to be good." 

Kanan leaned back and puffed out his chest and Salia pulled away to get a look at him, taking his cue. Half joking, he said, "Oh, it’ll be good--I am _very good_." 

Salia laughed. "We'll see." 

  
  


Kanan tied his hair up after the door shut and headed to his room, having a very hard time keeping a smile off of his face. When he got home, he found Baraga, huddled up with Sola, who was sitting on a borrowed chair. The two of them lept about a meter when they heard the door open. 

"Kanan!" Baraga gasped. "You're here," he observed. Sola's eyes were wide and she was gaping at him. Baraga was grinning meekly. Kanan was not sure he wanted to know what he'd walked in on. 

"I am here," he said carefully. He decided he did want to know. "What's going on?" 

"Well, I mean…" Baraga looked down at the desk they'd been sitting at. 

"We thought you were going to be spending the night in my room," Sola said bluntly. 

Kanan was the surprised one now. He laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. "I kind of thought that too," he admitted. Then he realized something. "Wait, is that the way to handle this?" he asked. 

Sola and Baraga looked at each other. "You're new to this, aren't you?" Sola asked. Thankfully, she didn't react to the flustered defense Kanan was struggling to begin. "We're in a uniquely convenient situation, but yes. You'll need to find a couple of people you can room with if you end up in the wrong building after curfew." 

"Or get used to sharing a small bunk," Baraga muttered out of the side of his mouth, seemingly speaking from experience as he raised his eyebrows and tried to banish the memory. 

"Normally you just com if you need to, but we could also make some standing arrangements," Sola suggested, placing her finger on her jaw thoughtfully. "Maybe weekends." 

"Sure," Kanan agreed. "But it'll have to wait." He turned to his bed and started getting his things for bed together. 

There was a silence and then some whispers. 

"Kanan, what would you think about helping us out with this project we've been working on?" Baraga questioned. 

Kanan gave him a sidelong glance. "I don't know I'll be much help," he began. "But I'm willing." 

"Good. We're trying to come up with a way to actually get information on where Trigo is." Baraga had turned back to his work at the desk. 

Kanan was stunned for a moment. "Trigo?" he asked incredulously. 

"Yeah, Trigo," Baraga confirmed. "You still in?" 

Kanan thought for a moment. Maybe he did need to ask for more information. "I'm in," he heard himself say. "But I want to know what you know." 

"Well, we know where he was arrested--" 

“No, I mean...” He crossed the room and sat on Baraga’s bed, formulating his question. “Why did Salia tell me to ask you about Trigo?” 

Baraga looked nervous and Sola seemed a little uncomfortable. “It’s complicated,” Baraga began. “We were roommates. Very good friends.” He looked anxiously at Sola. “And we dated.” 

Kanan took his turn to look at Sola. She didn’t look mad, but she wasn’t happy either. 

Baraga sighed. “Sola, I already told you that Trigo and I were already very… open.” Baraga threw a brief nervous glance at Kanan who regretted asking anything now. 

“Yeah, and I already told you that I’d be second fiddle to you after him,” Sola grumbled quietly. 

“We don't know that. We don't even know if he’s even alive, Sola,” Baraga replied, pleading in his voice. He sighed and hung his head. 

Sola stood up and walked to the other side of the room, her arms folded. “We can finish this discussion tomorrow,” she snapped. “Get on with the rescue mission. I’ll see you later.” And with that, she slipped out the door. 

Kanan raised his eyebrows, surprised, and turned to Baraga who was shaking his head. “Ouch,” Kanan said. The tension had been palpable. “She seemed very interested in finding Trigo the other day.” 

“And even just before you came, too,” Baraga gestured to the physical paper plans written up on the desk. “She said she hadn’t really considered what it would mean for her. She also said that she realized the whole thing was pretty illogical, but emotions, am I right?” Baraga leaned back in his chair. 

_Clouded judgment,_ Kanan thought. “Yeah, you’re right,” he agreed. 

“I don’t even know what I’d do,” Baraga began. “If Trigo was still alive and we somehow freed him. I hadn’t gotten that far.” He sighed. “How are you supposed to plan for a future you’re pretty sure doesn’t exist?” he pondered. 

Kanan smiled ruefully, this feeling was all too familiar. “You’re not,” he said, standing to get back to getting ready for bed. “So, what do you have so far?” asked Kanan, thinking back to the primordial plan. 

Baraga grinned. “More than I would’ve expected.” 

Kanan woke up to his comlink beeping and flashing. He rolled over, grabbed it and accepted the call. 

“Kanan?” Salia’s voice asked. 

“Hi,” he responded, rolling back over with it and pulling the blanket back over his shoulder. 

“Were you asleep?” Salia questioned. 

“Yeah,” Kanan replied, trying to make himself sound more awake unsuccessfully. 

“Well, good morning, but it’s nearly noon,” Salia informed him. 

Kanan was startled by that information, but not enough to jolt him out of bed. He’d been up late planning with Baraga. 

“Do you want to do something today?” Salia asked. 

“Yeah.” 

“Any ideas?” 

Kanan thought for a moment but his brain was too slow. “No.” 

“Can I come over?” 

Kanan grinned to himself. “Yes, come cuddle me, Salia,” he teased. 

She laughed. “See you in a minute.” 

Next thing he knew, Salia was walking in the door. 

“Didn’t I just…” Kanan began looking down at his comlink. Then back up to Salia. “I fell back asleep, didn’t I?” 

“You must’ve,” Salia said with amusement. He was very cute in this sleepy state. “It’s been about twenty minutes.” 

“Twenty…” He was surprised, but too sleepy to react more. He rolled over onto his side to face her now. He lifted up the blankets and looked up at her, his face full of hope. 

Salia’s heart was nearly bursting. She slid off her shoes and climbed into bed with him, lying on her back next to him. He wrapped an arm around her middle and nuzzled up next to her cheek. It did not take long for Salia to notice that his breath was not good, so she rolled onto her side to face away from him. They fit together well, but his body was hot and her hair was large. She tried to move it out of his face. 

“Thanks,” she heard him say against her neck once she managed to wrangle her curls back. His lips on her neck again, always distracting, but Salia enjoyed it. 

“So, how are you?” Salia asked, putting her arm on his and trying to settle in. 

“Happy,” he said back. “How are you?” 

“A little hot,” Salia answered. She felt Kanan laugh. “Were you up late last night?” she asked. 

Kanan nodded. “I asked Baraga about Trigo.” Kanan tried to peek over to Baraga’s bed. “Is Baraga here?” 

“No.” 

“Oh, well, good.” Kanan stopped talking and his breathing got slow again. 

“Kanan.” She was getting a little annoyed. “What did Baraga tell you?”

Kanan paused, but he wasn’t sleeping anymore. He pulled his arm out from under Salia’s and rubbed his eyes, rolling onto his back a little. “He told me about them,” Kanan began, sounding like he was trying to remember. “Sola was here and she left when that happened. And he told me about the plan.” 

“The plan?” Salia asked dubiously. They’d been planning without her. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to go through with it, but she wanted to be involved if they did. At least, she thought she wanted to be involved. Maybe it would be safer if she wasn’t… 

“Yeah, they have a would-be informant picked out,” Kanan began, sounding more awake. “They just need to figure out how to set the stage, so to speak.” 

“Who’s they?” 

“Baraga and Sola.” 

“But you said Sola left.” 

“Yeah, but she made the plan.” 

Salia thought for a moment and then decided to not worry about this Trigo plan or anything else for now. Not even Kanan’s morning breath. She rolled back over and put her head on his shoulder, hand on his chest. She felt him wrap the arm underneath her around her shoulders. She felt, too, the happiness he’d talked about, as well as a surprising calm. Kanan was peering over at her. 

The angle was funny, but Salia still thought he was handsome. He smiled. "What?" he asked. 

"Nothing," Salia said defensively. 

"No, I saw it," Kanan teased. 

Salia laughed. "Saw what?" 

"Something. I asked you." 

"I was just thinking that you're handsome," Salia admitted. 

Kanan looked impressed and pleased. "Well, of course I am," he replied, laying it on thick. Salia rolled her eyes, but her smile remained. 

Salia nuzzled up to him again and looked down at her own hand on his chest. She couldn't help but enjoy the intimacy of the moment, the two of them cuddled up in bed like a real couple, her hand on him, her toes on his feet. 

As if reading her mind, Kanan commented, "Could sure get used to this." 

Salia smiled, but was struck by a strange foreboding feeling. What if this progressed further than just the summer? What if she had to tell her parents about Kanan? What would she tell them? Salia didn't even know the things they cared about like where he was from or who his parents were. What kind of future could the two of them have? 

"Yeah," Salia answered quietly. "Kanan? How would you describe yourself?" Salia asked gently. 

"Hmm," he hummed thoughtfully. "Fiendishly handsome and up to no good?" he offered, smarmy as ever. Salia groaned, Kanan laughed and started to begin again. "I don't know. Fiendishly handsome is true, I stand by that. Talented. A little too confident." He chuckled at himself. 

"Does anyone ever ask you about your past or where you're from?" 

Kanan stiffened under her. "Not often," he replied. "Why do you ask?" 

Salia shrugged. "I just realized I don't know a lot of your information," she explained. "I feel like I know _you_ , though. At least a little." She bit her lip for a moment. "Enough to know I might love you." _Now who’s moving fast,_ Salia thought.

She heard Kanan gulp next to her ear. 

"You don't have to say it back," she said quickly. "And I know you don't like talking about your past. You don't have to." 

"Coruscant," he said quietly. "I'm from Coruscant." 

Salia was shocked. How could… he was not wealthy, obviously. But as far as Salia had always heard, it was nearly impossible to get off planet if you lived below the surface; no one could ever save enough to afford it. At least, not for the law abiding citizens. Was Kanan secretly wealthy? Why would he hide that past? The son of a separatist senator maybe? Or was he from the seedy underbelly, a place he said he'd been comfortable in? 

"Coruscant, huh?" Salia said simply. 

"Yeah." His muscles were tense under her. She realized that this had been shared in confidence and meant something close to, or maybe even stronger than, "I love you too" to Kanan. 

"Thanks for telling me," Salia said as warmly as possible. 

"It has to stay between us," Kanan said firmly. 

Salia nodded. "Sure thing." She felt him relax a little. 

"Kriff, I never thought I'd tell that to anybody," Kanan reflected, bemused. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suppressants are referenced in either Queen's Peril or Queen's Shadow (E.K. Johnston). I interpret them as a once a year injection, but not much is explicitly clear about them. Just that they prevent periods from happening (and presumably act as birth control).


	10. What Do We Want?

Late that night, Salia went home, having spent most of the day with Kanan, running errands and just strolling around town, even walking on the Ebeda Trail. It had given Salia a chance to gaze out over the rolling fields, looking towards the west. Maybe to Trigo. She’d told Kanan that there was a river out that direction and probably something like a forest there, too. Tonight, out there, looking out, she’d realized those rocks she’d always been interested in were near there, too. Kanan had listened to what she said about Trigo and his possible prison, but did not offer much by way of suggestion for how to proceed. He’d only said, “What do you want to do?” 

Salia hadn’t answered because she really didn’t know. The idea of actually trying to do anything about it was so daunting. Before, when it was just hunches and feelings, there was nearly no action required. But now she was looking at a real chance to do something about Trigo and she didn’t even know what she wanted. Did she want to rescue him? Did she just want to see him? If they rescued him, what would that mean for any of them? Would they be refugees, forever on the run? 

Trigo was a marked man, literally and figuratively, and it would be nearly impossible to live anything close to a normal life if he somehow got out from directly under the Empire’s thumb. They would always recognize his face. Home would never be an option again. 

So, maybe it would be better to just find out where he was, how he was, maybe see his face and leave him be. Maybe what she really wanted was to know he was alive somewhere and hope that maybe his debt to society would be paid before too long. 

Sola was home, alone. “Hey, Sola,” Salia greeted, taking off her shoes and setting some things down on her bed. 

“Hey,” Sola returned, though without an ounce of joy. It was unusual for Sola to be so down. Salia looked over and saw her hair was in disarray and her hooded eyes were puffy and red. 

“What’s up?” Salia asked cautiously. “If you don’t want to talk ab--”

“It’s Baraga.” Sola sighed loudly. “I’m just realizing he was never really mine in the first place.” 

Salia sat down in their one chair near Sola’s bed. 

“Everybody knew Baraga and Trigo were the dream team. They even made an open relationship look easy. How is that even possible?” Sola asked, completely bewildered. Sola sighed again and flopped her arms down on the bed--she’d been waving them rather animatedly for someone who seemed too tired to move. 

“I don’t know,” Salia agreed quietly. 

“And like, of course I want to help with Trigo! Of course!” Sola continued. “But, like, nobody is talking about what happens after.” 

Salia smiled sadly. “I want to talk about it,” she said. “I was just thinking that nobody is on the same page about what the real goal is here.” 

Sola looked over, some surprise on her face. “You know who would’ve helped us have a clear goal?” 

“Trigo,” they both said. Salia shook her head with a rueful chuckle. “He was really good at organizing,” she reflected. “Maybe that’s why I’ve felt so… lost without him.” 

“Well, that and the whole ‘turns out the Empire is bad’ thing,” Sola added. It wasn’t exactly a joke, but there was humor in it. Sola sighed again, but in a cleansing way. 

Their eyes met and they smiled. “Baraga’s a good guy,” Salia said. “I don’t think he’s trying to do this to you on purpose.” 

Sola nodded. “I know,” she conceded. “It’s just a lot harder to be the runner up when he’s actually thinking about Trigo.” Sola looked back over to Salia. “What do you want to have happen?” 

Salia looked down for a moment. “I think I just want to see him,” she began. “Not save him. Where would we go if we somehow liberated him? Nowhere would be safe.” 

Sola nodded. “I hadn’t thought about that. I’d just thought he’d go live with Baraga out in the boonies. That’s what Baraga said they’d been talking about before…” 

“Naboo?” Salia asked incredulously. “Trigo was going to…”  _ Skrag _ , Salia thought,  _ maybe I don’t know Trigo at all.  _ “I always thought he wanted to go home.” 

“Apparently Baraga was going to propose after the broadcast,” Sola said quietly. 

Salia was stunned. "That's big," she said after some time. 

"Yup," Sola agreed sardonically. 

Salia let out a big puff of air. "I had no idea."  _ Baraga must've been heartbroken.  _

After a long pause, Sola cleared her throat, getting Salia’s attention. “So, you and Kanan,” she asked. Salia got the impression she was trying to lighten the mood and was a little embarrassed by the enormous smile that spread across her face. “How’s all that going?” Sola added some exaggerated eyebrow wiggles, further embarrassing Salia. 

“I mean, it’s going,” Salia hedged. 

“Have you guys had sex yet?” Sola asked bluntly. 

Salia’s face was incredibly hot now. “Not yet,” she answered quietly. 

“How are you feeling about it? Do you need anything? Protection? Lacey underwear? Lower inhibitions?” Sola could tell she was making Salia uncomfortable and was enjoying it. 

Salia laughed out of amusement and discomfort. “Just to be done with my period, really,” she explained. Sola nodded with understanding. “Although, the inhibitions thing would be nice.” 

“What are you nervous about?” Sola asked, gently now. 

Salia shrugged. “I feel like I know him pretty well and that I don’t know him at all,” she explained. “I’m also a little confused why he’s into me at all. He seems kind of out of my league.” 

Sola shook her head with a “psh” to indicate Salia was very wrong. “No way! He’s smitten and you’re smokin’ hot!” Sola was always good for a pep talk. “But you should ask him,” Sola suggested with a devilish grin. “I love asking boys why they like me.”

Salia chuckled. Fishing for compliments did sound like fun. 

“Well, if you need me to lay out rose petals or anything, I’m willing, but I honestly think he wouldn’t mind the back of a speeder…” Sola couldn’t continue because she was laughing, probably at the image she’d just conjured. 

Salia rolled her eyes. “I’ll let you know.” 

  
  


Kanan tied his hair back up, enjoying the high of a good, passionate goodnight to Salia. Hands in his pockets, he walked to his dorm building, tooka cat scurrying at the sound of him. It was late, very near curfew--in fact, Kanan was cutting it real close. He jogged lightly to his door, opened it and slipped in, heading quickly up to his room. Inside, he found Baraga. 

“Heya, Kanan,” Baraga greeted from the desk. His papers were spread out in front of him, but he leaned back in his chair and focused his attention fully on Kanan. “How’s Salia?” 

“Good,” Kanan answered, unable to hide a small grin. 

Baraga chuckled. “How are  _ you  _ doing?” 

Kanan let his smile grow now as he sat on his bed. “Me?” he asked, feigning disinterest. “I’m  _ very _ good.” 

Baraga raised his eyebrows, impressed. 

“She, uh, she told me she loved me today,” Kanan revealed, scratching the back of his neck. He wasn’t sure why he was telling Baraga--this wasn’t the first time he’d been surprised by how at ease he felt around Baraga. Maybe the evening’s libations were helping. 

“Oh wow,” Baraga marveled, nodding his head slowly and looking down at his hands. He was fiddling with a pen. “What do you think about that?” 

“I liked it,” Kanan said, surprise laced in his tone. 

“Did you say it back?” Baraga asked. 

Kanan shook his head. “She said I didn’t need to,” he explained. “I’ve never said that to anybody.” 

Baraga nodded again. “It’s a big thing,” he noted. “The impulse is to be sure you feel it before you say it.” He sighed. “A lot of times it’s the saying it that does it, though.” 

Kanan nodded. He was not unfamiliar with the idea. They’d taught him in the temple about using mantras to improve focus and manifest their goals. It had been a long time since he’d had anything to declare to the Force, though. 

“How about you and Sola?” Kanan gently asked. 

Baraga sighed and shrugged. “We had a talk today,” he began. “We seem to be on the same page, but I don’t think she likes that page.” He looked up and met Kanan’s eyes. “She said we weren’t thinking about the long term right. Which we weren’t. I never think about long term anymore.” Baraga looked back down at his pen with big eyes. “What are we even trying to do about Trigo, you know?” he wondered. 

“I don’t know,” Kanan answered. “I asked Salia today, too, and she didn’t know.” 

“Sounds like we need a meeting,” Baraga observed. “Maybe tomorrow.” 

  
  


Kanan was standing out in a field in the early morning light. He was wearing Jedi robes, but they were too big. The sleeves draped down past his hands, the robes felt like they were going to slide off his shoulders any minute, and there was no chance of walking smoothly with so much fabric pooled around his feet. Or maybe he needed to run? He was suddenly tense, looking around for some danger when he noticed his lightsaber in his hand. It was warm and familiar. 

Off in the distance, through the mist, there was a humming sound followed by a silhouette of a man. A stormtrooper approached, speaking through his vocoder, though Kanan couldn’t hear what he was saying. Kanan tried to get away, but was unable to lift his feet. 

“Kanan,” he heard quietly. He whipped his head around to the voice and saw Salia, gripping his rough sleeve, watching the approaching stormtrooper. He followed her eyes now and saw that the trooper was upon them now. 

“Stand down, sir!” his voice--a clone’s voice--demanded, raising his blaster to point at Kanan. 

“Caleb?” Salia asked next to him. No, not Salia. He turned just in time to see Master Billaba, shot down by the trooper. Kanan ignited his lightsaber, now hot in his hand, and turned to rain his vengeance down on the killer. But he was alone. 

Caleb woke up, gasping for air and uncertain of where he was. He sat up in bed and looked across the dark room. Enough light issued from the window that he could see Baraga breathing slowly in sleep. He looked around to a chrono and saw that it was early in the morning, but he was not sure he would be able to go back to sleep. He wasn’t sure he  _ wanted  _ to go back to sleep--back to that nightmare. 

He turned his eyes to his com. 

_ It was only a dream.  _

If he called Salia, would she answer? Was she there? 

_ It was only a dream.  _

He took the com in his hands and laid down, burying himself under his blankets. “Salia?” he asked quietly, pressing the button to activate it. He nearly held his breath as he waited, hoping that she would answer. 

“Kanan?” a sleepy Salia asked from the other end. “What is it, Kanan?” she asked after he didn’t respond, unsure of what to say. 

“I had a dream,” he confided quietly. 

There was silence for a long beat. “Do you want to tell me about it?” she asked. 

Kanan had not thought this through. “No,” he lied. “I just wanted to hear your voice. Know you’re okay…” 

“Hmm,” Salia hummed on the other end. “I’m fine. Do you have these dreams often?” 

“Not so much anymore.” Since he’d been seeing Salia consistently, he’d been sleeping better and overall had been more happy, even without alcohol. “I think I kind of forgot how to handle ‘em.” 

“Hmm,” Salia hummed again, sounding weary. “Maybe we’d better be spending the night together next time it happens,” she suggested. 

Kanan perked up at that. “But how will we know when it might happen?” 

“We don’t, so I guess you’d better sleep over often.” 

Kanan chuckled. “Is this uninhibited Salia I’m talking to tonight?” he teased. 

“Maybe,” Salia taunted. Kanan could hear the smile in her voice. 

“Well, what will it be like when we do spend the night together, Salia?” Kanan didn’t want to go back to bed yet and was very interested to see what Salia would say in her current condition. 

Salia laughed breathily. “Well, I’ll be very tired and I’ll give you a kiss. Then I’ll roll over and go to sleep and you’ll cuddle up to me and wish I wasn’t so sleepy. Sound right?” 

Kanan chuckled. “Just about,” he answered. He could let her off the hook now, since she was clearly exhausted. “Goodnight, Salia.” He paused then added. “I love you.” His heart was pounding and he seemed unable to catch a breath. 

It took a minute, but Salia responded. “Goodnight, handsome boy.” And then the com light turned off. Kanan rolled onto his back, popping his hot face out of the covers. He held the comlink to his chest and looked up at the ceiling, elation spelled out in his features. 

He knew, even now, that this would have gotten him in big trouble as a Jedi padawan nearly ready to take the trials and become a Jedi knight--where he would’ve been if it hadn’t been for the war. He deeply missed some things about the temple and about his time with his friends and master. But how could he deny the joy in this moment granted to him only because of attachment? It was so different from anything he’d experienced--or at least allowed himself to experience. 

The feeling was vaguely reminiscent of the way he’d felt with Master Billaba, though only in depth. And that unnamed feeling he’d had for his master had come simultaneously with shame that he’d failed to remain unattached. What he had with Salia, though, was without guilt. It was unfettered joy and the thrill of connection. What would his relationships with his master and his friends at the temple have been like if they’d been allowed to feel so connected? 

He thought now that maybe they’d been missing out. 

“So what do we want?” Sola asked the table, holding a menu data pad in her hands. They’d opted for breakfast--brunch, they were calling it--at a loud and overcrowded diner-style restaurant Kanan had not heard of before. Baraga and Kanan both had needed to put their arms up on the booth backs because they’d been given a table normally intended for two people. 

Baraga had suggested the spot, forgetting that it would be packed with people because, apparently, this was a popular thing for students to do on the weekends. “This will be good, though,” Baraga had said, “Nobody will be able to hear us.” 

Kanan peered over to Salia’s data pad menu--they only had two since the spot was only meant for two--and was astounded by the prices. “Damn, these people do this  _ every week _ ?” Kanan incredulously asked. 

Salia smiled over, her eyebrows raised in sympathetic shock. “Can you believe it?” she asked. 

“How do they even make it back to Naboo…” Kanan trailed off shaking his head. Salia handed the menu over and Kanan looked down at it, analyzing now, trying to decide how he could get away with spending as little as possible. “Who’s paying that much for two eggs?” he asked Salia quietly. 

She chuckled at him. “I think Baraga is today,” she whispered back, leaning in close. 

Kanan raised his eyebrows, impressed. “Well, that certainly changes things.” It really didn’t change things that much, but it did mean that Kanan could get something he would actually like instead of “local bread with egg.” 

The waiter droid swung by, everyone put in their orders, and then they all looked around at each other. “So, what do we really want?” Sola asked, her voice lower and more serious now. 

Salia and Baraga looked at each other. “You’re his sister, you go first,” Baraga encouraged. 

“I don’t know, he wanted to build a life with you,” Salia responded. 

Baraga shrugged, shaking his head. “I don’t even know, Salia,” he said, trying and failing to not look despondent. 

Salia gave him a small half smile and nodded. “Well, I was thinking about the options.” She turned her attention to everyone in turn, now. “I guess there’s an option to rescue him and somehow liberate him from whatever situation he’s currently in. Even if we could figure out how to do that, I think we would put ourselves in a very sticky situation of being on the run forever. Trigo and I are distinctive and there’s very little we could do to get away from that.” 

“Maybe Outer Rim?” Kanan countered. 

“Or Wild Space!” Sola said, like it was just an exotic place to visit. 

“On the run, though, no matter where we head,” Salia affirmed. “I’m hardly cut out for that, but if you two wanted to do that, that would be fine.” She gestured to Baraga. “Maybe you two  _ are _ cut out for being wanted forever. I wouldn’t be able to keep in contact, probably, at least not without some seriously encrypted long-range coms, but I think I really only want to see him once, so that would be fine.” 

There was a pause. “What do you mean ‘see him’?” Baraga asked, confused. 

Salia looked up at him. “I’ve been trying to believe he’s alive for so long, I just want to see if he’s alive,” she explained. “Maybe we find out where he is, go there and just get a look at him. To make sure he’s surviving.” 

“Not even talk to him?” Baraga asked. 

Kanan was catching on now. “I guess we have to ask ourselves what would the warden do if they found out he’d had contact with us,” Kanan explained. 

Baraga looked down at his laced fingers, placed on the table. “That would be difficult,” he said carefully. 

“It would be,” Salia agreed, nodding. 

Sola spoke up now. “Maybe we could send him a message?” she suggested. “Something that would tie it to the old Ellay squad without making it obvious?” 

“You mean like the coded messages? Ah, he used to be so good at those.” Baraga remembered back fondly for a moment. “That’s a good idea. A piece of paper he could keep with him.” 

“Does he have a cipher?” Salia asked. “I doubt it.” 

“We can use a simple code,” Baraga said. 

“But couldn’t they figure it out?” 

“If they cared, they could figure out the harder ones, too,” Kanan stepped in for a moment. “I’m guessing they don’t care that much about him, otherwise he’d be somewhere else, right?” 

“We’re banking on that,” Sola agreed. 

“Then they won’t have the resources or interest to deal with it even if they did find it,” Kanan said. “Direct contact, on the other hand…” He trailed off, shaking his head. 

“What do you think, Baraga?” Salia asked. 

Baraga looked disappointed, but nodded his head. “That sounds safe,” he conceded. 

The waiter droid came back now with something called Moogan Mimosas for everyone. Kanan didn’t remember ordering it, but accepted the pinky orange drink and took a sip.  _ Maybe brunch isn’t so bad.  _


	11. Their Wishes

Feeling a little tipsy and not upset about it, Kanan and Salia decided to head back to his room maybe for a nap. The air was very thick and hot and being outside in the hottest part of the day without getting paid didn’t sound great. And, in fact, Kanan’s dorm room, even with low quality air treatment, was better than outside. 

Inhibitions low, Kanan turned to Salia and asked, “What did Trigo do, anyway?” 

Salia looked down at the bag she was placing on the desk and then up to Kanan who was already sitting on his bed, shoes off. She pulled her lips together and raised her eyebrows--apprehensive maybe. “I don’t know if you’re going to like it,” she said. 

Kanan felt suddenly nervous, though he was fairly certain he had no reason to be. He was not at all sure what to say in response and, thankfully, Salia decided to start without waiting, sitting down next to him. 

"He'd been studying law and was one year away from graduating. During his studies, though, he'd found that the Empire was breaking its own law. The details don't exactly matter--it was always a little difficult for me to understand anyway. He wanted more to point out their negligence than anything, but he couldn't legally file anything since he hadn't graduated yet.

"So we planned a sort of... guerrilla assault. Graffiti and hacking local holonets and plastering up signs…" Salia trailed off. "We needed help and there were a lot of people involved." 

"In going against the Empire?" Kanan asked, his tone disbelieving. 

"No, no," Salia shook her head. "No, it was about reform. They--we wanted the Empire to do better. The whole thing was rooted in trust that the Imperials were trying to do good and were not living up to their potential." She sighed. "We hoped that if the public saw the problem, they'd demand better from their Moff and local governments." 

"What happened?" Kanan asked. 

Salia shook her head. "They found out about our big event, the one we'd been planning for months, to hack into the holonet and broadcast a speech. We'd been planning to break into a communications tower to get the signal further. There’d never been any guards there before, but that night, there were tons and we didn't realize until it was too late." 

Salia shut her eyes. "Trigo took the fall for us and sent everybody else back," she said, her voice nearly breaking. "Tried to talk it out with the stormtroopers, but they already knew Trigo was the guy who'd organized the vandalism and discontent." She shook her head now. "So, they arrested him, brought him out into the school's main quad the next day and made an example out of him." She looked haunted by the image for a moment.

"And then they took him away," Salia finished, voice breaking slightly. Her sad eyes met Kanan's for a moment before she began to really cry, covering her face with one hand. Kanan wrapped his arms around her and hoped that the physical support would be helpful. Like a summer thunderstorm, she let it out, maybe for the first time since the initial grief had overtaken her. It felt fresh and big. Kanan rubbed her back and felt his own heart breaking empathetically. 

Kanan wondered now about what Salia had meant that he might not like what Trigo had done. What was she guessing about him? All he had told her was a planet of origin and that planet was so massively huge, how could it really tell her anything about who he was? What did the people who had never lived on Coruscant think about Coruscant? He tried to remember the things he’d gleaned. In Kanan’s new circles, if you said Coruscant it seemed like people assumed you were up to no good, but he hadn’t brushed shoulders with the kind of people who would’ve been living in the upper levels. What did they think his home planet was about? 

_ Second home planet _ , Kanan reminded himself--though he had no memory or concrete knowledge of the first.

Salia let out a shuddering breath and came back to herself a bit, the torrent of pain stemmed for a moment. She turned her face enough to push a desperate kiss onto his cheek and then neck. Salia hadn’t taken a lot of time on his neck thus far, so she didn’t realize how effective it was for getting Kanan started. Or maybe she did and hadn't wanted to get him started before. 

Her hunger was obvious and hard to ignore. Kanan swore in his head, frustrated that presumably today was not the day; he hadn’t asked when her period would be over, but it hadn’t seemed soon when she’d told him. He bit his lip and tried to stifle a moan, but it rumbled in his throat in spite of it all. She paused for a second to let out a breathy laugh, but got back to it quickly. 

Sitting next to each other, they were twisted uncomfortably to make this all happen and, while Kanan was very strong, some of the muscles in his torso were taking attention away from the work Salia was doing. For someone who had neglected meditation so much recently, he knew this was a place he wanted to be without distraction.

“Salia?” he asked quietly. 

“Mmm?” she responded, not stopping. 

Kanan tried hard to form words. “Do you think we could find something a little more comfortable?” 

Salia’s lips broke away from his skin and she looked up into his face, gripping his shirt collar in both hands. Her eyes were puffy, but there was a glint of mischief there now. “What did you have in mind, Kanan?” she asked, voice smooth as silk. 

Kanan had a lot of things in mind, but wasn’t sure what she was up to. Before he could find a safe answer, she pushed him down on the bed, yanked his legs up deftly, and straddled him. She leaned over to kiss him now, fully and passionately. Kanan reached down and found her knees, running his hands up to find her hips. Her shirt was falling and he could feel her bare skin now. She shivered at the touch. 

Now, Kanan was usually the guy in charge in his escapades with women and, even with Salia, he’d taken the lead on things. Before Salia, it had always been a quick meeting meant for one thing only and, while he enjoyed the foreplay, he didn’t see it as strictly necessary or an end to its own. Here, two things were different. Salia was deciding what to do and when and Kanan was enjoying running his fingers along her stomach and the tops of her hips immensely. He couldn’t spare much attention for it now, but he did wonder if it felt better because of their relationship or because he’d been waiting so long for something like this to happen with her.

He wondered, too, if he should explore more skin or simply enjoy what he currently had access to. Salia was in charge, so he held off on slipping his hand under her clothes to her shoulder blades for a long time. Salia had already gone to his neck and then, an entirely new spot, his collarbone. She’d pushed his shirt aside just a bit to get easier access and that action alone had given him the fortitude to begin his exploration. 

Apparently that touch had done something for her, too, because Salia tore her mouth away and sat down gently on him. His hand slipped down to her hips now. He opened his eyes and saw her, smiling but sad  _ and sexy as hell _ . She swung her leg around and laid down next to him, as they had done before, with her head on his shoulder. Salia slipped her fingers under the collar of his shirt and sighed. 

“What?” Kanan asked gently. “Did I do something wrong?” 

“No,” Salia returned quietly. 

Kanan put one hand on her back, again in between her shoulders, and the other on her arm, near her shoulder. “You just can’t yet?” he guessed. 

“Yup,” she answered sadly. 

“Well, I enjoyed it anyway,” Kanan offered. 

Salia threw him a sly look, though he could only barely see it. “Really?” 

“Yeah,” Kanan coughed out, nearly laughing from surprise. Of course he enjoyed it! How could she be skeptical? 

“Why?” 

Kanan was taken aback. “Why what?” 

“Why did you like it?” Salia asked, feigning innocence, or perhaps actually unaware of what she’d done to him. 

Kanan smacked his lips apprehensively. “Salia, I mean--” he tried. She turned her face to his now and he could see her teasing smile, but also knew that she would not accept that as an answer. “Uh, well, I--you’re skin is… so soft and your mouth, I mean,” Kanan struggled. He shook his head in awe at the returning tingles just the memory had brought. “And the way you took charge like that,” he added, looking back down at her. 

Salia seemed to accept the incoherent mess and smiled, pleased. “Next week,” she said. “After work.” 

Kanan gulped. 

  
  


Kanan’s face had been relatively neutral when Salia had told him about Trigo and what had happened. She still didn’t know what exactly he thought about the Ellay and their goal. There had been two times he’d reacted; the idea of going against the Empire had shocked him and the way they’d taken Trigo without question had saddened him. 

He was sleeping next to her now. She was surprised, honestly, that he’d fallen asleep so easily. They’d talked about taking a nap but it had seemed like once she stopped talking, he was out. 

So, that left Salia, comfy in his arms, with time to think about how she should ask now that her intended opportunity was gone. And also to linger on and over analyze how he might’ve received it. 

Salia wished she didn’t care about finding out more about his past. She hadn’t for a long while. But with one piece of the puzzle now in her hands, she seemed to be spending undue time and energy on figuring out the rest without any of the other pieces. What did the information have to tell her so far? 

Anti-Empire feelings could be either Separatist affiliation or criminal--neither had any reason to like the new government as far as Salia could tell. His disbelief that they would try to fight back, though, suggested squashed Separatist. And, Salia admitted to herself, she’d rather he were that than a low life. Had he ever talked about the Clone Wars?

_ Oh, and that deep sadness,  _ she remembered. “Separatist” was sounding more and more right. But he would’ve been so young when the Clone Wars had started. Would he really consider himself from there? Well, no, he really hadn’t been that young, Salia realized. The war had just felt like a long time, but she had had a childhood before it. And so had Kanan. 

She turned her face, trying not to disturb his sleep, but wanting to get a look at him. He looked so calm and peaceful. What horrors had his eyes seen to have caused such pain and loss that she could feel it easily? Had he fought--no he couldn’t have. The Separatists didn’t use  _ children _ in their non-droid battalions, did they? 

Maybe he’d relocated to a war-torn world. No one had been left untouched by the war, but some places had been worse off than others. Salia had really only been aware of the Republic’s pain, but looking at him now, she realized that there had to have been pain for every clone victory. What was a victory in war without pain? 

Salia raised a finger and touched the tip of his chin as softly as she could, tracing down to the hollow of his neck. Then she let her hand down, gently, over his chest which was ebbing and flowing with slow steady breath. Sleepiness overtook her and she drifted off on the waves of his breathing. 

  
  


Kanan's eyes fluttered open and he turned to look at the girl next to him. Her tattoos were bright in the late afternoon light--they were always bright. Her mouth was slightly parted as she slept and her hand was resting neatly on his chest. Kanan tried not to move too much, but wanted to touch some part of her skin. He lifted his arm and put his hand on hers before shutting his eyes again. 

He didn't often think about the future, but he was thinking now that he didn't want this to end. And that led him to wonder what he could do to prolong this. Salia had more time at school and, yes, Kanan really didn't have any plans for after the summer, but he didn't think tagging along with Salia to Naboo would really be an option. For her or for him. 

No, probably this would have to end when the summer did. Kanan would drift to the next job and Salia would head back to school. Kanan had avoided lasting relationships in part because he knew being a drifter would be safer, but also because he just really hadn't taken the time to get to know anybody. Maybe people--some people--could be trusted.  _ Maybe some people _ , he opened his eyes and looked down at Salia,  _ were worth the risk _ . 

He decided he'd look into jobs on Naboo, just in case. 

He also decided that he could not ignore his need for a refresher any longer. He tried his hardest to wiggle out from under Salia without waking her up; he lifted her hand and slipped his arm out from under her, simultaneously rolling to the edge of the bed. He fell with a thunk, biting his lip to keep from cursing and further disturbing his sleeper, but when he brought himself up to chance a look, she was alert and awake. 

“Kanan, what are you doing?” she asked, confusion written out on her features. 

Kanan winced. “Refresher,” he explained simply, shrugging. “Sorry I woke you up.” 

“It’s probably for the best,” Salia said, turning to the wall to get comfortable and let him leave. 

They had decided to go for a walk, not yet feeling hungry. The air was sticky, but they were both feeling restless. They headed out in the direction of the highlands, a walk that was quickly becoming their favorite, and stopped as the sun was setting. The sky was cloudy and the colors were bright and fiery now that the sun was low enough to show its full force. Orange and pink, the fields looked more like art than reality. It also looked like it might rain any second.

Walking again, Kanan asked, “What did you mean earlier that I might not like what Trigo did?” 

Salia was a little surprised. She hadn’t yet figured out how to ask him casually what he’d thought, so here she was handed the opportunity. “I just meant that I don’t really know much about your past or your current political ideas,” she explained. “You seem like you are pretty unhappy with the current regime. But we weren’t. Trigo wasn’t. I was thinking that maybe you’d enjoy the idea of them punishing their own fans.” 

Salia was surprised to feel him squeeze her hand a little harder. “I think I’d be unhappy with  _ any _ regime,” Kanan began. “Nobody has really done right by me,” he added. 

Quietly, Salia thought about what he’d said. She wondered if he’d go on, but didn’t expect him to. He’d already shared more about himself than she’d really ever anticipated, but even so, she hoped that maybe he’d open up. 

He surprised her and started up again. “Back on Coruscant, I did what they told me. I  _ loved _ them,” he said it with some awe in his voice. “I never thought about why they wanted me to do what I was doing. I was always so focused on other questions.” He scratched the back of his neck now. “Then everything changed, and it just threw everything I thought I knew out the window. Even what I thought I knew about my own family.” He sighed and hung his head for a beat. “They would’ve hated that I’m dating you,” he finished with a bit of a smirk. 

“What?” Salia asked incredulously. “Really? Why?” 

Kanan looked into the air thoughtfully. “They didn’t want me to date anyone. They wanted me to stay with them.” 

“Well, what do you think about going against their wishes?” Salia asked, smiling now. 

They stopped walking and Kanan hugged her tight. Salia wrapped her own arms around him and tried to stifle her surprise at the earnestness of this embrace. Kanan was usually more sensual in these moments, but the passion she felt from him now was distinctly different. 

“Skrag their  _ wishes _ ,” he spat. Then he confided more gently, “I have never been happier.” 


	12. The Delight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it looks like this is the second to last chapter, but it's not! The story continues!

A few days into the work week, Salia and Sola walked together to work. They’d been pretty busy with the boys so far this summer, but this time had remained theirs. Aeshi sometimes joined them, but was sometimes running too late. Sola had been spending less time with Baraga, Salia had gathered, but they hadn’t really broken up either. Salia hadn’t wanted to pressure Sola into talking about Baraga if she didn’t want to, so she wasn’t really sure where things were for them. 

On this particular morning, Sola brought it up on her own. “You know, I have decided that this Trigo business is more about you and Trigo and what Ellay represented than about Baraga,” she stated plainly. 

Salia nodded. “Makes sense,” she validated. 

Sola looked determined. “Yeah, it does,” she agreed. “Baraga and I aren’t sure how things are going to work out, but we’re trying to understand each other better.” Sola sighed now. “I was just having a real hard time believing that Trigo was even out there, so I think I was relying on what it meant to Baraga--and to you--to go find him. But I’m starting to believe it. And he did a lot for me, too.” 

Trigo had done a lot for Ellay--their title came from "L.A." meaning law abiders. He’d lead them into battle, and when they failed he sacrificed himself so that they could grapple with the false goodness of the Empire in comfort and freedom. Salia couldn’t imagine what it would have been like for Trigo to have his faith in the institution attacked both intellectually and physically. 

“So, anyway,” Sola began again. “I’m doing it for Trigo. Doing it for you and me. Trying to help Baraga through it without giving him everything I’ve got.” Sola shook her head. “He’s really a mess though,” she explained. “I didn’t realize how serious it had been.” 

“Yeah, me neither,” Salia revealed, shaking her own head now. “Trigo told me he wanted to make it serious, but he also said they had to get some things done first. I guess he meant the broadcast.” 

“I guess it just goes to show you never know what time you have,” Sola said sadly. “Things could always change tomorrow.” 

Salia normally didn't pay attention to trite platitudes, but this one struck her now. She'd been thinking about the idea a lot since Kanan had told everyone his favorite place. She wanted very badly to exist in the present but was finding herself torn between the past and the future. She hadn't yet thought hard about what the future looked like for her and Kanan, at least not in any real terms. But now she was thinking about Trigo and Baraga and how things had ended for them. It forced her to ask herself if she was enjoying the moments she actually had with Kanan? Or was she trying to figure out a past he didn't want to share? 

She thought more and more about that over the course of the hot work day. After taking a personal inventory, she resolved to be more like Kanan and to enjoy what she had now. Anything could happen anytime to end whatever it was they were enjoying now. 

Friend's night rolled around. Salia had walked with Kanan to the dorms, said she didn't want to do friend's night but was obligated, and gave him a quick kiss goodbye. So, Kanan was getting ready to go into town with Baraga who said he'd had errands to do before they would head to The Outpost. 

Baraga led him to a long, narrow store, filled nearly to the brim. There were tall shelves that were stuffed with both bulky and small items from top to bottom. A sullen Rodian sat on a stool near a door behind a counter. "Anything I can help you with?" he asked with his tinny voice. 

"Camping supplies, please," Baraga requested, brightly. 

The Rodian switched his large eyes around and squinted. "I mean, I'll sell it to you, but you know there's a curfew on, right?" he asked. 

"Yeah, we're just planning some daytime festivities but it could rain, you never know. Gotta be ready for anything," Baraga explained with some extra smarm. 

"Shelves 12, 13 and 14 should be right," the Rodian said with a little suspicion. 

"Thank you so, much, my man," Baraga said with a nod and a huge smile. He even gestured with double finger guns as Kanan yanked him back into the shelves. 

Once they'd made it a ways back, Kanan muttered, "We should probably get out of here pretty fast after that stunt you just pulled." 

"Relax, we'll be fine," Baraga assured him. "I come in here all the time. We're like old pals." 

"Look, I don't know how familiar you are with Rodians, but he was looking like he knew something we don't," Kanan explained. Something felt off about all of this. 

"Alright, I'll be fast," Baraga agreed. "Here we are," he said gesturing to a shelf. 

"What are we looking for?" Kanan asked, hoping to speed things along. 

Baraga paused thoughtfully for a minute. "Well a tent, obviously. Big enough for all of us. Probably a couple of sleeping bags and maybe some stuff for cooking rations. And rations, of course." He picked up a small tool with two fingers and dropped it back down with a clatter as Kanan gaped at him. 

"That list is horrible," he said, shaking his head. "What the hell is this for, Baraga?" 

"You know," Baraga answered, raising his eyebrows repeatedly. 

Kanan was quietly seething now, completely disbelieving. "No, I don't know," he finally said drily. 

"The  _ thing _ ," Baraga whispered. "The one we've been talking about." 

"Look,  _ buddy _ , you could have told me about this earlier." Kanan understood now but was mad about being surprised by it. 

He started digging through the shelves, but they were completely disorganized and nothing was together, so there was no way to compare prices or even see a selection without a lot more time than Kanan wanted to spend here. He did find rations and by some miracle those were all together. He picked out a few all purpose ones for any time of day, heat or no heat. 

"Oh I found just the tent," Baraga called over from shelf 13. 

"Great," Kanan mumbled with not a little sarcasm. He found a trowel and considered it for a minute. They wouldn't have refreshers presumably for a while. Were they hiking out or what? Kanan had no idea how long this endeavor was going to be. Maybe he needed to grab more rations. He really couldn't ask Baraga now, just in case. "How long are we planning?" Kanan whispered quietly anyway. 

"Hopefully only 12 hours," Baraga answered. "At the most, 24." 

Kanan decided against the trowel and hoped that somebody had a multitool. 

The door to the shop opened and closed. Kanan listened closely. The sound was louder than your average shopper, but what worried Kanan more came next. "They're just back there," the Rodian said. 

"Kriff," Kanan muttered under his breath. "Baraga, we--"

"Relax, Kanan," Baraga said with a smile, coming around the corner of the shelf. "Just play along." He turned his attention back to the shop's wares. "Sleeping bags…" 

Kanan could hear them coming closer. He turned to look at the shelves on the other side, trying to play it cool and keep his head down as he normally did around imperials. He knew now that was who they were as the stormtrooper's helmets bobbed up and down, coming nearer. 

"Oh, pardon us, Ma'am. Were you looking to get through here?" Baraga asked as the officer and two troopers arrived and halted. Kanan kept his eyes on the merchandise until Baraga nudged him. He turned and saw the woman. She was not quite middle aged but not young, and fairly nondescript. Her posture was strong and stubborn though. 

She scowled at them. "No, I believe I was looking for you," she said in her core world accent.  _ Even the core worlders are out here getting this rotten gig _ , Kanan thought, but tried to keep his face neutral. 

"Oh, well, what can we do for you?" Baraga asked, putting one elbow on the shelf near him to lean casually.  _ Wow, he's good. _

The woman rolled her eyes. "It's come to our attention that you two have come here to purchase camping supplies. Is that correct?" 

"Yes, ma'am," Baraga answered with a nod and a big smile. 

"And, were you aware," she paused for emphasis, "that there is currently a curfew in this region?"

"Uh huh." Baraga was starting to look goofy at this point. 

"So, why then would you need camping supplies when you are required to be in your dwelling place between twenty-two hundred and oh-five hundred every night?" She seemed very tired of dealing with this. 

Baraga had a glint in his eye as he leaned in to answer, like he was telling her a secret. "It's a native Rorian ritual," he began. "Old, old thing. Ancient, really. Nobody does it anymore. And I’m trying to revive it." 

Kanan could see the Imperial Officer getting bored. "Get on with it," she grumbled. 

"You see, at the pique of summer, in the heat of the day, you head out into that field with as many adults as you can find." He was sounding insane and the glint in his eyes was brighter than ever. "And then, you do it." 

"Do what?" Kanan wasn't sure why she was asking, maybe out of legal obligation, but she did not sound interested or even happy in the slightest. 

"Oh, you know," Baraga turned now to Kanan with a slightly awkward shrug. "The whole thing's for mating and reproducing." 

She was flabbergasted now. "An  _ orgy _ ?" Kanan was surprised, too, but tried desperately not to show it.

"Well, I mean, I guess," Baraga said, scratching the back of his neck. "It's a lot less poetic when you put it like that. We have always called it ‘ _ the delight.’  _ You know, you could probably join if you wanted. It's usually just for Naboo and Rorian folks, but I'm sure nobody would mind if a lovely lady such as yourself--" 

"No! No," she nearly shouted back at him. "Just make sure you're back in your home by twenty-two hundred. And be grateful our glorious Emperor hasn't outlawed such lewd behavior.  _ Yet _ ." With a flush and another scowl, she turned on her heel and left. 

Baraga and Kanan exchanged glances, one incredibly pleased with himself and the other impressed. When the door had shut Kanan chanced a whisper to Baraga. “Did you make that up?” he asked. 

Baraga shrugged. “Not exactly,” he answered. “Oh, look, a family pack of four sleeping bags, convenient.” He grabbed those and gathered up the tent while Kanan picked up the things he’d found. Heavy laden, they found the counter and Baraga pulled out his money to make the purchase. It took the store keeper a little while to tally everything up, but the total was shockingly low. Then again, who would spend big money and risk trouble with the Empire just to sleep outside on the ground?

“Trying to revive the delight, huh?” he asked as Baraga handed the money over. The Rodian crossed his arms and tried not to smile. 

Baraga flashed him a big grin now. “Yeah, well, you know,” he began uncomfortably.  _ Or,  _ Kanan realized,  _ likely acting uncomfortable for effect.  _ “I gotta call it  _ something _ .” 

The Rodian laughed, closing his galaxy eyes. “Thanks for the business,” he finally said. “Sorry about calling those guys.” 

Baraga shrugged. “Just doing your civic duty, I understand,” he forgave. Kanan had picked most of the things back up, so they left after Baraga gathered the rest of the rations. 

Out on the street, Baraga sighed, pleased with himself. Kanan barked a laugh, a mix of relieved, amused and astounded. “Wow,” Kanan let out. 

“What did we tell you?” Baraga asked. “The schmooze. It works every time.” 

Kanan shook his head, still amazed. “I’ll have to keep that one in my back pocket,” he announced. 

“I like Rori Restaurant,” Sola countered, looking a little indignant. The friends had not settled on where to go for their dinner out and Aeshi was pushing for Neeja Cafe where the other two had just gone for brunch a few days earlier. 

“Yeah, but Neeja Cafe is cool,” Aeshi retorted. “Plus I can get a salad that isn’t half meat and drowning in dressing.” They started heading in the direction of the Cafe, though Sola looked put out. “I’ll pay, okay?” Aeshi called back, noticing the others were less enthused. 

When they arrived, it was a little busy, so they stepped out of the way to wait, near a booth they couldn’t see into. Someone was talking loudly at it. Well, not just someone. It was Olan Prine, his lofty affectation was unmistakable. Aeshi didn’t exactly like Prine, but they weren’t on bad terms the way nearly everyone else was with him, Salia remembered. She hoped they wouldn’t try to talk to him, but Salia was often surprised by who Aeshi wanted to talk to and when. 

After a short wait, their names were called when a table was available and the waiter droid led them to the table just on the other side of Prine and his companions. Salia tried not to look visibly disappointed by being near his loud voice and scooted in to the bench further away from him. It was still nearly impossible to tune him out, but Salia did her best. 

The Cafe was offering a weeknight deal that included three courses and when they arrived at the dessert course of the night, having had some good light conversations about how things were and pop culture media, Salia heard something Prine said that actually made her perk up. 

“Well, you all know that my intention is to go into the Senate after graduation, but I’ve been working a bit with Captain Habea here and it’s been really interesting. I don’t think I could do the army, but the navy seems like it could be a good place for me,” his voice drifted over. 

Salia glanced over to Sola who also looked like she wasn’t paying attention to their own table anymore. 

“Oh, you know, sorting and filing. It’s not fun, but it could get me in the door or up the ladder a little faster,” Prine answered a question. 

Sola looked up to Salia now and tried not to look obviously checked out of what Aeshi was saying. 

They noticed in spite of the charade. “What’s going on? I thought you guys liked Kelsa Dala,” they asked. Kelsa Dala was a weekly fiction holo that, yes, they did all like, but Aeshi had not been involved in planning for Trigo thus far and Salia wasn’t sure they wanted to be. 

“We do,” Sola jumped in. “I just… haven’t seen the new episode yet.” 

“Oh, what?” Aeshi was stunned and put a hand to their mouth. “You should’ve told me! Major spoilers, I am so sorry!” 

“That’s okay, Aeshi,” Salia assured with a gentle pat on the arm. She returned her attention to her dessert, taking one of the last bites before adding, “Maybe we should head back and watch that tonight? Would you mind watching it again?”

“No, no not at all,” Aeshi shook their head and started to gather belongings. “It would probably be good, actually. It was so confusing.” They smiled a little, shaking their head. 

“We can talk about it together,” Sola offered. “Maybe we’ll get it all figured out.” She looked pointedly at Salia who had already caught her drift. 

  
  


Kanan and Baraga both had too much to drink at The Outpost. The regular bartender, whose name Kanan did not know, had not been in and instead there was an older man who seemed to be faster with drinks than the regular barkeep. So they’d had a lot more than they were recently used to thanks to that and thanks to feeling a need to celebrate. 

“To a schmooze well done,” Baraga raised his glass shakily, laughing after he said it. 

Kanan answered more steadily, with a clink of shot glasses and laughter. He downed the liquor which burned sweetly on the way down and placed the now empty cup on the table, looking around for the next. There wasn’t one, though, and the waiter droid came by and said, “That’s it, we’re closed.” 

“Damn,” Kanan sighed, looking over to Baraga who was still smiling, perhaps having not noticed what the droid said. “Did you hear that, bud?” he asked. 

Baraga blinked at Kanan, grin still there. “What?” he asked.

“We gotta go,” he slurred. Kanan threw his thumb back towards the door. 

“Oh,” Baraga looked down at himself, checking any place a pocket might ever be for his wallet. “Guess we better get moving.” They started to get out of the booth, stumbling slightly when they stood. “I don’t think I should risk doing a double schmooze,” Baraga commented. “Especially not in this state.” 

Kanan laughed. “In what state, Baraga? You’re better than ever!” Kanan threw his arm around Baraga’s big shoulders and the pair walked off to settle their debt on the way out. 

Later, they clambered into their room. Kanan was wiping tears of laughter out of his eyes. He couldn’t actually recall what Baraga had said that had tickled him so, but he was enjoying it still and feeling lighter than air. Usually when he was drunk, he was not so euphoric; the change was welcome. 

Baraga started to undo his belt near their sink. 

“No!” Kanan shouted through a new fit of laughter. After leaping over with comparative grace, he grabbed Baraga’s shoulders and pointed him in the direction of the refresher. 

“Kanan,” Baraga groaned, leaning back onto his arms. 

“Ugh, fine,” Kanan grunted. He pushed Baraga’s body to the communal refresher, shoving him in. 

“Hey, thanks, man,” Baraga slurred over to Kanan who was folding his arms, looking mad, but trying not to smile. Kanan caught a peek of himself in the mirror and burst into laughter again. “Hey, what?” Baraga asked. “You know alcohol decreases blood flow.” 

Kanan couldn’t explain what was making him laugh to reassure Baraga. He could hardly breathe, he was so overtaken. 

They eventually made it back to their room where Baraga, upon laying down, suddenly became strangely wise. “What would you do tomorrow if you knew it was your last day to live?” he asked Kanan. 

Kanan, over his giggle fit, stared Baraga down for a long beat. Kanan squinted and pointed a finger, thinking that he’d caught Baraga in something. Baraga let out one long sputtering laugh and then rolled over in his bed, instantly asleep. Kanan’s laughter petered out once he got in his own bed. He was out like a light after just a few breaths. 


	13. Our Plans

Kanan peeled his eyes open slowly, but shut them immediately. The light was too much, his head was throbbing and he really needed a drink. His stomach lurched. No, not that kind of drink. Keeping his eyes shut tight, he reached for the canteen he usually kept nearby. His mouth was dry and water was the only thing that would work. 

Water would've helped last night, but Kanan really hadn't expected to end up so drunk until it was already happening. His head was spinning too, he realized after taking a long swig from his canteen. He groaned and regretted not eating anything last night, though he did not regret any of what he clearly remembered. 

He heard Baraga groaning on the other side of the room, followed by a simply uttered swear. "Kanan?" he called over feebly. 

"Yeah?" Kanan managed. 

"We messed up." 

"Yeah," Kanan answered, resigned. "Gotta go work though." 

"Ahhhhh, kriff," Baraga responded, groaning again. 

Kanan shuffled out of bed, his head still spinning. He took a second to focus on standing up straight and then looked around for his hat, hoping it would block out some of the light. "Do you have any water?" Kanan asked, but before Baraga could answer, he spotted a large bottle on the desk. Kanan took it over to Baraga. "If we hurry, we can get some caf, that'll help," Kanan suggested. 

Baraga groaned again. "I might miss today," he admitted. "Or maybe go late…" 

"Alright, good luck to you, buddy," Kanan accepted, slapping Baraga on the shoulder, inciting another muffled groan. 

Kanan chuckled and opened the door to head out, but groaned himself when he saw how bright it was.  _ This day had better be worth it _ . 

The farm was in shadow. It was a thick, cloudy day. Salia expected it would rain any minute and then what would the watering crews do? Salia didn't have to wonder for too long because the rain came, hard and strong. Thankfully not loud, although if lightning started, they'd have to take shelter. A worker came by to shout at them to switch the watering rig to collect and to pull out the long prong on the side of it to pierce thin holes in the ground. "Just mind the sprouts," she finished. 

So, the labor--already a little dreary but familiar--became lonely and physically demanding as she raised and lowered her arms repeatedly all morning. Nevermind that she was already drenched and somehow getting more wet. Her hair was plastered to her neck and back and tangling around her shoulders. It was long when dry, but when wet it was completely unmanageable. 

She tried to focus on the task at hand, making it to lunch and a little break with shelter. Maybe they'd tell everybody to go home soon. She'd worked one rainy day last summer when they'd sent everyone home, but it had been later in the day and later in the season. 

Lunch eventually did come and, as she approached the lunch shuttle, Salia recognized Kanan's big hat. Rain was dripping off on every side, but somehow his hair still seemed to be soaked through. Salia walked up to him and said, "Hi." 

He turned with a smile and then his eyes were big with surprise. "Whoa, your hair!" 

Salia touched it. "What, do you hate it?" she asked, some teasing in her voice. 

"It's just so long… and small," he explained. "You look really different, that's all." He looked uncomfortable. 

"Not bad I hope," Salia said as they managed to find some space under the temporary shelter. Salia proceeded to wring out her locks. 

"No," Kanan started. "Well, I mean, none of us look great right now." He gestured to the dreary group of drenched workers. They were mud-splattered and their clothes were clinging to them, nearly ready to slip off. 

"It's true," Salia agreed. "Maybe they'll send us home…" Salia snuck a sly glance over to Kanan. "We could get a head start on our plans if they do." 

"Did we have plans?" Kanan asked, looking up to remember, but wincing and returning his gaze down. His eyes and mouth popped open as he realized that they had no work the next day. A wry smile found its way to his face as did his hand. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and nodded. "I like the idea of heading home early," he finally said. Then he looked a little crestfallen. 

"What?" Salia asked. 

Kanan shrugged. "Baraga stayed home today, so I don't really know where--" 

"Mine is fine. Why did Baraga stay home?" 

"We, uh," Kanan paused to huff a single laugh. "We had  _ a lot _ to drink last night." 

Salia raised an eyebrow and folded her arms. "Oh, I see, took advantage of Selda's day off without me?" 

Kanan shrugged. "It's not my fault you had friend's night. Was that any good?" 

Salia nodded. "Yeah, it was nice. I do have something to tell you about it later." 

"I have something to tell you later too," Kanan replied, smiling again and looking sly. 

Salia laughed and bumped him playfully with her elbow. 

The rain slowed down and Salia started to give up hope on a short work day. They got their sandwiches and ate, huddled up together in the small mass of people. Their co-workers were noisier than usual, maybe complaining about the weather. Nobody was in a rush to leave back for work, either, not even Kanan who usually got back quickly and knew that getting back to work meant getting off sooner. 

"It's just miserable," he commented. "Plus I've still got the headache." 

Salia grimaced. "Have you been drinking water?" she asked. 

"Loads," Kanan answered back. "I should get some more…" He peered over the group of people, but she perceived that he wasn't sure he wanted to fight his way over to fill his canteen. 

"Here, have some of mine," Salia offered, handing the bottle over. She hadn’t had much to drink so far today, on account of it not being nearly as hot as it usually was. 

"Thanks." Kanan accepted it and took a few big gulps. Salia took it back and noticed something relatively unfamiliar in his eyes. It was a tenderness and appreciation that made Salia melt. She took the water bottle back, the accidental brush of his fingers feeling unusually comfortable, but still charged with electricity. Salia leaned in for a short kiss--Kanan had mentioned wanting to keep it minimal at work--and was happy to feel him kiss back, longer and harder than she’d intended or expected. 

When they broke apart, she smiled, trying to keep her lips pinned together. 

“Alright, storm's eased up, go put in two more hours and then head home,” the shuttle driver’s voice shouted to the crowd. The directions were met with a groan. 

Kanan nudged Salia and she could feel her excitement bubbling up rapidly. She snuck a peek over at him and saw him waggling his eyebrows, nodding, and altogether looking pleased. Salia laughed and said, “I guess I’ll see you later then?” 

“You’d better believe it,” he assured her, adjusting his hat to cover his face from the light rain that was falling. 

Kanan had done the work, had tried to focus as best he could on it, even, but he was ready to get home, get out of the rain, and, especially, to get into Salia’s arms. He let his mind wander into rocky, uncharted terrain and began to muse about a far off future with Salia. What could it look like for the two of them to know they’d come home to each other every night? 

He knew the excitement he was feeling now would wear off after some time; he’d heard that from old timers he’d worked with. He’d seen it in the seediest places he’d been where the brothels were well-liked by middle aged married beings. And Kanan had nearly fallen prey to a few married women who were neglected by a partner. But, right now, anxiously waiting for the work day to finish, he couldn’t imagine how spouses could get bored of each other. 

He, somewhat uncharacteristically, had a clear, unsolicited memory pop into his head. It was like a holo image of his master talking with Master Windu. Neither of them really had friends, nobody was supposed to have friends though all the younglings knew that there were quite a few knights and masters who appeared to be very chummy. Windu and Billaba weren’t chummy, but they were cordial and often sat together during mealtimes or after meditation sessions. 

This particular memory, Kanan--Caleb had asked a question that everyone had thought was not appropriate.  _ That seemed to happen often _ , Kanan recalled. He had looked over to the two masters, wondering what they were saying about him, knowing that they were judging him somehow. The masters often judged their padawans--it was part of temple life to be summed up in front of a crowd, eyes and focus boring into the poor learners soul. It was self-preservation to just accept it and accept that whatever judgment the masters came to was meant to improve and came from a place of something like parental love. 

Even so, Caleb had struggled to accept his criticisms humbly. Often, he bristled against the instructions which, many masters had said, came from the will of the Force.  _ Not my Master, though, she never said that about her corrections.  _ Windu, though, had delivered a judgment that had required extensive meditation to resolve. He had rearranged room assignments so that Caleb no longer roomed with Sammo, who he’d gotten along with well. Though Caleb wouldn’t have called Sammo a friend then, Kanan knew what friendship was like, and Sammo was definitely a friend. Master Windu had seen the connection the two had and made sure it would not interfere with their molding. 

The Jedi had gotten so much of it wrong. They taught him so many things that just didn’t work in the real world. Kanan had to live in the real world now. What other esoterica had they taught him that he should cast off? Maybe he could stop drifting. 

What kind of a normal life could he have? 

When the two hours ended, Kanan found himself nearly running to clock out and get home. He commed Salia right after he was through the check in station and she told him she'd let him know when she was ready, but they both had to shower and it could be a while. So, Kanan headed home to get out of his muddy clothes and into a hot shower. When he finished and entered his room, he found Baraga freshly back from, apparently, work. 

"What a day, huh?" Baraga asked. 

"You're telling me," Kanan shot back with a grin. 

Baraga stopped getting his shower things together and looked over to Kanan, surprised or impressed, Kanan wasn't sure and he wasn't exactly interested in knowing. 

"In a good mood, huh?" Baraga asked, unable to contain his curiosity. 

Kanan was digging around in his personal bag, looking for the contraceptives he had stowed away there. His hand brushed against the riflescope bag that held his lightsaber--in two pieces.  _ Definitely not it _ , he thought. 

Baraga plopped down in the chair on the other side of the room. "Oh, I see," he drawled. "Today's the day, I guess?" 

Kanan figured Baraga would know before too long, so he nodded. "Today is the day," he said each word with care and delight. 

"Do you need anything?" Baraga asked casually. 

Kanan finally felt the pouch he was looking for. "Nope," he answered, pulling it out. 

"You ever had a  _ repeat dance partner _ before?"

Kanan got a little uncomfortable. He had done a few rounds with the same girl a couple of times, but never not in one night. "Not really," he said, scratching the back of his neck. 

Baraga nodded. "Well, take care of her first," he advised. Then he added with a devilish grin, "You do know how to do that, don't you?"

Kanan furrowed his brow. "Yes, of course I know how to do that!" 

Baraga raised his hands in front of him-- _ don't shoot.  _ "I'm just saying," he defended. 

Baraga had successfully made Kanan a little nervous. 

Sola came through the door about ten minutes later. She frowned at Kanan. "What are  _ you _ still doing here?" she asked. 

Kanan tried not to get angry. He shrugged. "I don't even know anymore," he said, standing with his small overnight bag. He went to the door and started to leave. 

"Have fun!" Baraga called over, stifling laughter. 

"Sure, see ya, pal," Kanan said indignantly. The door shut behind him and he started to walk over to Salia's, taking a long route to bide his time. 

He’d wandered a little in the muddy streets when the com came. “Hey,” she’d said, sounding both sultry and embarrassed. 

“Hey,” Kanan answered back, goofy grin spreading wide across his face. “Guess I can come over now?” 

“Uh-huh,” Salia answered simply. 

Kanan had already turned around to head there and was bounding over. “Won’t be a minute,” Kanan told her. She giggled and the com light went off. 

When Kanan made it to her door, he let out a huff of air.  _ Okay, this is it, big guy, _ he thought to himself. He knocked on the door, heard her say a quiet “come in” and slipped through, nearly tripping. He looked up from the floor when the door closed and beheld Salia standing in front of him wearing a short, sheer black robe. Her hair was dry now and large, as he was used to. More of her skin was bare than he’d ever seen at one time and the suggestion of what was happening under the robe was nearly too much to take in. He could feel that he was gawking at her, slack-jawed, but he couldn’t stop. 

“What?” Salia asked quietly, her lips spread in a wide smile. 

Kanan looked up at her face and shook himself out of his stupor. “You’re beautiful, that’s all,” he said with a tiny grin. 

She smirked now. “What are you going to do about it?” she dared him, taking slow steps over to him.

Kanan put his overnight things down on the floor. “I have a couple of ideas,” he teased. She put her hands on his neck and pulled him into a kiss. Kanan gladly returned it, his hands finding her back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so the second half of this chapter is the next work in this series. It is separate because it does contain something between mature and explicit content. It is completely optional. The work after that is the second half of Daybreak. Thanks for following along and hopefully this is straightforward enough. I really wanted to include the next bit in the story without excluding readers who don't generally go for that sort of thing and here's the weird workaround.


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